photocynthesis

China Trip Wrap Up

2012-01-10T13:11:00.005-05:00

Here's our travel summary, memories that stand out, and a few interesting pictures that Doug took while we were there. I'm sure I'll be adding things to the "memories" part of this post over the next couple of weeks, but in the meantime you can read the day-by-day details and see some of the many photos I took in the preceding posts (click on the link).

12/21/11: Train from Bridgeport, CT to 125th Street Station, M30 bus to LaGuardia, flights to O'Hare and then Beijing, short night of sleep. LINK

12/22/11: skipped due to crossing the international date line I think. LINK

12/23/11:  bus to train, train to Qingdao, bus to hotel, dinner, sleep. LINK

12/24/11: daytime free, rehearsal, concert, dinner, sleep. LINK

12/25/11: early bus to airport, flight to Dalian, bus to hotel, rehearsal, concert, dinner, sleep. LINK

12/26/11: bus to Jinzhou, lunch, rehearsal, concert, dinner, sleep. LINK

12/27/11: bus to Chaoyang, lunch, rehearsal, concert, dinner, overnight bus to Beijing LINK

12/28/11: flight to Shenzhen, bus to hotel, lunch, rehearsal, concert, dinner, sleep. LINK

12/29/11: short bus ride to Guangzhou, lunch, free time, rehearsal, concert, dinner, sleep. LINK

12/30/11: bus to airport, all day flight to Shenyang, bus to hotel, dinner, sleep. LINK

12/31/11: morning sightseeing, dumplings, afternoon walking, rehearsal, concert, dinner, sleep.  LINK #1   LINK #2   LINK #3

01/01/12:  very early bus to train station, train to Beijing, bus to hotel, rehearsal, concert, dinner, sleep. LINK

01/02/12: day off in Beijing!!! LINK

01/03/12: very early bus to airport, flight to Xi'an, bus to hotel, rehearsal, concert, dinner, sleep. LINK

01/04/12: bus to Terra Cotta Warriors and back, afternoon in Xi'an, evening flight to Beijing, bus to hotel. LINK #1 LINK #2

01/05/12: early bus to airport, flight from Beijing to Chicago, then LaGuardia, M30 bus to Harlem, train to Bridgeport, car to Trumbull. LINK

Favorite things about the trip include playing the concerts, the excellent orchestra full of outstanding musicians and wonderful people, the fabulous conductor, the interesting and delicious banquets that we had night after night, seeing a lot of the non-touristy parts of China in addition to some of the major sights, and getting to know some of the people who lived in all of the many different places we visited. But the highlight of each day for me was playing the concert. I love making music with these people. It was a wonderful experience that I would have enjoyed no matter where we were playing.

I have new appreciation for our rather posh existence back here in the USA, especially for our high standards of cleanliness, the relatively un-polluted air, drinkable tap water, and normal toilets. These are all things I took for granted. Now I feel lucky to have them. And those are just some of the superficial things. There are an awful lot of far more important things from this trip that I observed, learned from, and am still digesting. I may or may not discuss these things in future posts.

A couple of the other orchestra members are blogging about our experience as well. I've really enjoyed hearing about the trip from their perspective - it's very cool the way their memories enhance my own. Here are some links to those blogs:

From "Symphony Now"

Notes from the Viola Section

*************************************************

And here are a few of Doug's favorite photos that he took while we were there:

Some people are still using a good old donkey to get around.

agriculture

cell phone tree

It kind of looks like he took his bike to go shopping at Ikea.

Is this a three-wheeled car, or some kind of deluxe motorcycle?

Pretending to look horrified - No, I did NOT eat that chicken head!

halfway through one of our many banquets, can't remember which one.

China Day 15 - heading home

2012-01-05T22:45:00.001-05:00

No more China . . . . just some boring airplane photography.

We didn't see these mountains from the train or the bus!

Heading north - it was a little snowy when we left Shenyang.

The flight to Chicago went by reasonably quickly, with about four hours of sleep in the middle.

Approaching NYC!

getting closer!

and it's time to turn off the camera now

We're heading back to Jennifer's house in Connecticut for a couple more days. We are so excited to be almost home!

China Day 14, Part 2 - sightseeing in old Xi'an

2012-01-04T23:18:00.001-05:00

We had some time to kill before our flight back to Beijing so they dropped us off in the old walled city section of Xi'an for a couple of hours. We really enjoyed having a chance to wander around this beautiful area. It was a lovely way to spend our last bit of free time in China. Here are some pictures I took that afternoon:

heading to old town

They have both a wall and a moat surrounding the original part of Xi'an.

I think they were in the process of setting up for Chinese New Year.

I always thought that creatures from Outer Space were supposed to be either green or silver!

ROTFLMAO

Get yer candied crab apples and roasted sweet potatoes here!

Pretty!

A street of coffeehouses and jazz clubs - and Cool Ha Na

Chinese to English sounds so graceful and yet so awkward

All of the Christmas decorations were still up - this one totally matches our front door!

Goodbye Coffee Street....

This does not bring back pleasant memories.

Back at the wall - look at how they hack away at the trees to keep them short.

Our green buses await in the distance.

It's the year of the dragon!

It got dark as we headed out of town. Goodbye Xi'an!

Once we finished our afternoon of sightseeing in old Xi'an, we headed to the airport for our flight back to Beijing and to the good ole USA the following morning. After we arrived and collected our luggage, there were three tiny shuttle buses waiting to take all eightysomething of us to our hotel. Since it was already around midnight and our flight left at something like 5:30 in the morning, we were suddenly given the option of staying at the airport or taking the extra time to go stay at the hotel.

Most people decided at that point it would be easier to just stay at the airport. The twelve or so of us who prefered to get in a few hours of sleep in a bed, and take a shower, were very grateful to have still had that option.

We arrived at the airport the next morning feeling somewhat refreshed, and far less bleary-eyed than our counterparts who had toughed it out at the airport all night long. Although from what I heard, there was some beer and booze contributing to the bleary eyes of some. My hat is off to all of them though. They had a much longer day than we did, if you count the number of hours between nights of actual bed rest.

China Day 14, Part 1 - Terracotta Warriors

2012-01-04T10:38:00.053-05:00

Our last day in China was a day of sightseeing. We were given a wonderful tour of the nearby site where the Xi'an Terracotta Warriors were discovered back in the 1970s. They have enclosed the areas where they are still digging them up and restoring them, turning it into a very large working museum. Here is a model of the site and the surrounding mountains:

Some reading material for you:

Pictures of lots and lots of Terracotta Warriors and their beautiful horses:

Here is a bronze chariot drawn by four bronze horses:

The surrounding countryside is beautiful and peaceful - the perfect place to be buried with clay models of all of your friends and associates.

The site of our last lazy susan feast:

Some pictures from the bus window on the way back to our hotel. I guess it's extra convenience to have the power supply so near to where you live!?!!

China Day 13 - Concert in Xi'an

2012-01-03T09:28:00.004-05:00

We had another early morning call today - I don't remember how early, I don't want to remember how early, it was EARLY and still dark outside when we loaded onto the bus to the airport for our flight to Xi'an.

I guess I was awake enough at that hour to find the need to entertain myself. So here's an exciting photo of my trusty suitcase, backpack, and bow case. Whoop-Dee-Doo.

We arrived in Xi'an relatively early in the day. The air in Xi'an was fresh and clean, allowing for some delightfully intense sunshine to flood our hotel room. This was one of my favorite rooms of the trip in spite of the fact that there was less storage space than usual.

And there was also this:

It seems like almost every room on our tour had some weird little issue, although I wouldn't exactly describe this as little. But over all the room seemed very clean and did not smell at all, which made it much easier to not think about what might be growing there on the door frame.

I was very pleased in general with the lack of smell in most of the hotel rooms I had China, especially considering the prevalence of smoking and the occasional lack of cleanliness in certain areas. Either they don't use those nasty scented carpet cleaners the way they do in the US, or they have a secret smell-obliterating formula. And no matter what else might have been amiss in the cleanliness department the bedding and towels were ALWAYS immaculately clean and fresh.

Anyway, we had plenty of time to walk around the newer section of Xi'an where we were staying and performing that night. This part of town is all dolled up and kept extra clean, presumably because it is the gateway for all of the tourists who come to see the Terracotta Warriors. It was nice to be in a clean city for a change, even though it felt kind of artificial. They had a big western-style shopping center, with prices to match, and all kinds of interesting sculptures decorating the streets and walkways.

I have no idea what this thing might be, but there it is:

There were lots of brand new traditional style buildings.

The police presence seemed much gentler and more friendly than usual.

They even have a complaint box. I didn't know that lodging a complaint was an acceptable thing to do in China.

There were what I'd call "preview statues" to get everyone in the mood to go see the real terracotta warriers.

This part of Xi'an is even going to have a monorail eventually. Just like Disneyland!

Here's the Ecology Pork Distribution Center. Who knew that pigs could be contributers to ecology?

It was nice to see that we were in such good company at the Xi'an Concert Hall. If it's good enough for Yo Yo Ma, it's good enough for the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony!

The Xi'an Concert Hall was a wonderful venue in which to perform our final concert of the tour.

After the concert they took us to what I think was the Muslim quarter and we had a dinner that was unlike any we'd had during the rest of the trip. The restaurant was filthy and I was still queasy from the day before and had no appetite at all. I had no desire to eat more germs. But I did try a few sips of one of the soups and it was absolutely delicious - very different from any of the other soups I'd had. The dumplings were amazing but I was only able to eat two of them. The lamb was kind of grossing me out - they had a couple of sheep torsos out on the barbeque in front of the restaurant which we passed on the way in. Anyway, it was a very interesting place and I'm glad I got to see it. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been still recovering from the previous day's stomach issues.

China Day 12 - Day off in Beijing

2012-01-02T15:29:00.004-05:00

We had been very excited about going to the Great Wall of China, but two meals at the same restaurant the day before had resulted in me having some, um, symptoms..... so sleeping in and drinking lots of bottled water seemed like the best choice for the morning. I had almost no appetite during the remainder of the trip, and actually for a couple of days afterwards. But I'm fine now.

Doug was on a quest for tea and he also wanted to check out the musical instrument shops that we'd seen on the way to the Beijing Concert Hall the night before. Fortunately those shops were on the way to the nearest subway stop. My goals for the day were to see the Forbidden City and one of the famous marketplaces, and to not have any more digestive issues.

We went in a bunch of music stores which all smelled very strongly of Chinese food and/or dust. But it was fun to see and hear the customers checking out and playing the various Chinese instruments that each shop sold. He also found a tea store that had a good selection and picked up a few different types of tea there.

As we approached the subway that would take us up to Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City, we came across a small side street that looked interesting. It turns out that we'd stumbled upon one of the main smaller attractions in Beijing, but we didn't know that at the time.

This is a street that is known for bookstores, calligraphy, and art galleries. But Doug's tea needs were still not satisfied so when this lovely tea store owner invited us into her shop we went on in.

This was a "real" tea store, as opposed to the place we'd been before which just sold tea. The store we were in now did the whole tea ceremony thing where they fix a pot of each tea you are interested in, and they pour hot water over the pot several times and pour the tea over the lucky ceramic frog before serving it.

It was a completely delightful experience and we bought several more teas including some lychee tea which is supposedly good for digestion in addition to being delicious. This from a coffee drinker.

If you ever happen to find yourself in Beijing and want to have a nice tea drinking/buying experience, I highly recommend that you visit this shop. They also have an extensive selection of teapots, beautifully handcrafted by her brother.

We continued down this street, visiting bookstores, art supply stores, and galleries, completely forgetting about our intention to visit the Forbidden City.

Here's a bit of information about this historical old street:

It was getting to be kind of late in the afternoon so we wandered back back in the direction of the hotel, thinking we might at least hit the market nearby. We saw this pedestrian bridge on the way.

And this super fancy building on the corner.

Here's a section of the ceiling of that pedestrian bridge above:

This restaurant looks like it might be a fun place to eat.

This fast food stand does NOT look like it would be a fun place to eat.

Here's our tea stash:

In spite of the fact that we did not go to any of the "must see" sights we still had a delightful day off in Beijing, just wandering around and enjoying the city.

China Day 11 - Beijing Concert

2012-01-01T15:02:00.000-05:00

We loaded into buses headed for the train station before it was even light outside. I don't remember the exact time except that it was very very early. It was snowing lightly. The bus dropped us off on the other side of a traffic circle in front of the train station. We all crossed the wide boulevard with our luggage in tow. Fortunately the air was so dry that the snow that was falling on us evaporated immediately.

We got to the station in plenty of time for our departure for Beijing. Fortunately most of us were able to find a place to sit/sleep while we waited. Our high speed train looked almost exactly like the one picture below:

As we travelled to Beijing I took a few pictures out of the window. These smoke stacks were everywhere.

We also passed row upon row of what look like chicken coops to me, being from Maryland. I have no idea what they were, but we saw them all over the place.

Eventually I became bored with the scenery outside and took a few pictures of this adorable cutie instead.

The train ride lasted several hours at least. It was great to finally arrive at the Beijing train station, knowing that this time it wasn't just a transfer point.

We got to spend two whole nights in this beautiful and immaculately clean room. This was the first hotel that had self-service guest laundry. It was so nice to have a chance to wash all of our clothes.

We played another wonderful concert at the Beijing Concert Hall and looked forward having the next day completely free for sightseeing.

China Day Ten - morning sightseeing in Shenyang

2011-12-31T07:01:00.005-05:00

We had a nice opportunity to visit some of the sights in Shenyang today - a very large statue of Mao Zedong and the surrounding square, followed by an amazing palace that had belonged to one of the key figures in northeastern China's history.

I will tell you in advance that you will not be learning much of anything about the history of China from this post. It was more of an "Oh wow, look at that!" kind of day for me and my main focus was to take a bunch of pretty pictures and also somehow manage to keep my fingers from falling off due to the extreme cold.

So here they are:

This is either Zhang Xueliang or his son. They were both owners of the palace we were about to visit.

playing hackysack in the square

The Palace!

Here's some info for you.

the daughters

I like the tile on this stairwell.

Huge doors!

This dude drove up rather suddenly and glared at us intimidatingly.

wall decoration

a very fancy ceiling

a wall plaque

Shenyang, Old and New

China Day Ten - afternoon in Shenyang

2011-12-31T06:01:00.002-05:00

After our long morning of sightseeing we were taken to what was known as the best dumpling place in town. It was one of my favorite meals of the trip and I was too busy enjoying the many different flavors of dumplings we were served to take any pictures of them, apparently. But I did take a couple of pictures during the tea and appetizer section of the meal.

This is what was in our tea cup before they poured in the hot water. Isn't it pretty? The tea was absolutely delightful and full of delicate flavor.

They poured water into the teacups from a very fancy kettle! Look how tired everyone looks. Tired, but happy.

And now, a long boring story about our after lunch transportation adventures:

After lunch Doug and I thought it would be fun to walk around the downtown promenade area for a little while to get a feel for the city itself. Although it was extremely cold, we figured if we kept moving it wouldn't feel as cold as it was.

Our friends Nancy and Jeff decided to go with us. We ended up going into a lot of stores instead of just trudging around in the cold. Most of the stores in downtown Shenyang were in more of the western style, so that wasn't particularly interesting but it was interesting to see how westernized they were. We found a decorative face mask for Nancy and we also got some excellent treats from a bakery.

After that we started the process of returning to the hotel with what we thought was plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately none of the many many cabs driving around in the area would stop for us, so I resorted to my go-to backup plan for foreign countries which has always worked quite well for me in the past. We went to a hotel to find someone reasonably fluent in English to help us figure out the metro stop for our hotel. The subway was right there, so it seemed like a good alternative to a taxi.

The hotel clerk was VERY helpful. She personally led us down into the subway station, spoke to an official near the turnstile, and even helped us buy our tickets from the machine. Then she passed us over to one of the security guards and he told us which train to get on. Inside the car was a diagram that made it very clear that we were headed to our intended stop.

Once we got out it we were in a different downtown area and we thought we could just walk from there, but someone told us it was way too far and that we should take a cab instead. So we tried again. And gave up. We weren't exactly sure why they weren't stopping.

There was a Crowne Plaza hotel across the street so again I thought that would be the place to find help. It was so nice for the concierge to help us even though we weren't staying there. But I don't think they realized that, hahaha. They sent the bellhop out to hail us a cab and he tried and tried and tried, to no avail. Finally I asked him if we should try something else and he said we might have better luck if we stood across the street because the cabs would be going in the right direction for the theatre where our hotel was.

So we tried that and when once again it didn't work we went back to the Crowne Plaza and talked them into hiring us a car and driver to take us back. The guy pulled up in a big fancy Mercedes and we headed back to our hotel in style. The cost was less than $30, and at that point it was well worth it. And we arrived just in the nick of time.

China Day Ten - New Year's Eve concert in Shenyang

2011-12-31T05:01:00.004-05:00

The Laioning Grand Theatre was full of snazz and pizzazz - a perfect setting for a New Year's Eve concert. As we got ready I started thinking about other New Year's Eve gigs I'd played far from home.

The first one was in 1999, heading into 2000, at the House of Blues in Tunica Mississippi. That was trumped in 2003 when I was playing on a ship off of the Pacific coast of Mexico. Since then it's always been in the DC area. I guess this year in China takes the cake!

Before each concert the cello players have to do an enormous amount of prep work to get the Chinese cellos into playable condition. The basses were often pretty bad too, but we managed to get away without having to re-string them. They usually need some bridge adjustment and/or shimming though.

I think this must be the gaudiest theater ever. Can you even see the percussion section amidst all of that? It was both funny and fun in my opinion.

HAPPY NEW YEAR ! ! !

China Day Nine - back to the frozen North

2011-12-30T03:50:00.002-05:00

After our two days of warm and recovery from the cold we headed back up for our final concert in the Laioning Province. We played a total of five concerts in this area, in Qingdao, Dalian, Jinzhou, Chaoyang, and now Shenyang.

Here we are boarding our plane for the five hour flight to Shenyang.

Here's a bus eye's view of a local bus in the next lane over. I'm not sure whether they wear those masks to protect themselves from germs, to protect others from their germs, or to protect themselves from the cold, and why they were seen fairly often on women, but rarely on men.

After a bus ride through the city we arrived at the theatre. Our hotel was right next door, and accessible without having to go outside.

The rooms in this hotel were homey, but not particularly clean. Several of our hotels were that way. There would be different kinds of random miscellaneous deficiencies in cleanliness, like they had just forgotten to address one part of the cleaning.

The rooms were always neat and tidy, but sometimes there was dust around the perimeter of the room, sometimes it looked like they hadn't wiped off the counters after the last person, sometimes the room smelled a little, or had a dirty looking carpet, a moldy shower curtain, etc. But the beds, sheets, and towels were always completely immaculate and fresh so that was always a relief.

Over all I would say that most American hotel rooms smell far worse than any of these did. And I've been in a lot of hotel rooms so I know what I'm talking about. Most of our hotel rooms in China didn't smell at all, even when they looked a little dirty. I was both amazed and pleased by that.

I was also pleased that the one picture in our room was of a bass player!

We weren't right smack in the middle of downtown - this view from our hotel room window shows how it is kind of off in the distance.

Since we'd been travelling all day and had a rare night off it was great to be able to have our daily dinner banquet at 7:30 instead of 10:30 for a change.

China Day Eight - Guangzhou

2011-12-29T18:16:00.004-05:00

We had a wonderful time in Guangzhou. The day started with a tiny little two hour bus ride from Shenzhen that seemed like nothing after some of the travel days we'd had. I took a couple of shots from the bus on the way into the city. I took the presence of this adorable gnome statue as a sign that we were about to have a really fun day.

Guangzhou is another big city down around the same area as Hong Kong. Unfortunately there was not time to visit Hong Kong, but we had plenty of fun in Guangzhou and the weather was equally nice. These tall buildings, which were shot from the window of the bus look kind of wild, don't they?

Here is our beautiful room at the Jovenstars Hotel:

We had lunch at a nearby restaurant. This was the first place that presented us a plate of chopped up chicken which also included the head and the feet. None of us were curious enough to give those items a try.

After lunch we decided to go check out the park across the street. It was large, beautiful, and peaceful. I took many pictures.

Many of our fellow musicians had exactly the same idea. It was a wonderful way to spend the afternoon in such lovely weather.

There were lots of people practicing their native Chinese instruments in the park. I guess you could call it Chinese chamber music.

Here's a pair of lovely gazebos:

I loved all of the statues we saw. I think these are dogs, but they might be lions.

After the park we visited a fruit stand. I'm sure Doug would have bought himself some Mandarin oranges if he didn't have a huge stash already.

Mystery fruit - or is that a vegetable? Whatever it is, it's kind of pretty.

Doug is a kitty magnet.

This is the view from a bridge we crossed on the way back:

The HuaShan Leisure Club was just two doors down from our hotel. We got an invigorating yet refreshing hour-long massage for about 10 dollars each.

We decided to pass on the fire therapy and the scrape therapy and go for something slightly more relaxing. We felt great afterwards!

The Xinghai Concert Hall was lovely inside and interesting outside. We had to wait a bit for the buses but it was such a pleasant temperature outside that it didn't matter at all, and it gave me a chance to take a quick photo of the outside of the hall.

There was a tower with fabulous lighting off in the distance. The color changed constantly.

China Day Seven - heading south to Shenzhen

2011-12-28T06:33:00.003-05:00

Our last night in cold weather was a doozy. We were scheduled to be on overnight sleeper buses to Beijing but the person designated to check them out determined that they were not up to our standards. I think I heard that they smelled bad or something. It was probably stale cigarette smoke or something. So they put us on three buses so that each person would have a pair of seats to stretch out on instead of having a seatmate. These buses were supposedly heated, but the bus I was on was incredibly cold the entire night. Maybe the heat didn't make it all the way to the back of the bus. I was pretty much awake shivering the entire night. It was hopeless trying to sleep.

So we got to the Beijing Airport the next morning all refreshed from the icy cold air, hahaha, in plenty of time to catch our flight to Shenzen down in the southern region near Hong Kong. The toll booths in Beijing are very very fancy.

From Beijing we flew down to Shenzhen which is in the southeast, fairly close to Hong Kong. The weather was fantastic and put us all in a much better mood after our grueling night of freezing cold bus travel. The hotel was beautiful. Check out the lobby:

We were on the 23rd floor. Here's the view from our hotel room window:

There was also this note:

The Shenzhen Concert Hall was gorgeous. Unfortunately I somehow how managed to forget to take a picture of it. But here's a shot of the lobby:

And there was an enormous billboard-sized promo banner of us in the lobby too!

China Day Six - Chaoyang

2011-12-27T05:23:00.003-05:00

Chaoyang was one of my favorite places on this tour. It was farther inland - still in the Laioning Province, but in the northwest section, not too far from Inner Mongolia. It had a completely different flavor from the other cities we had visited so far, more ethnic somehow. It definitely had a different vibe on a number of different levels.

All of the food we'd had so far was excellent. They would serve us lavish meals with about 13 or 14 different plates of food on a huge lazy susan at a huge round table. There were some different things at each meal, but a lot of it was the same. In Chaoyang it seemed like all of the food was new things we hadn't had before and it was all amazingingly delicious and fresh. We all declared the lunch to be the best meal ever. I think they did dinner as a buffet for a change. It was excellent too.

The people in Chaoyang were the warmest and friendliest people we had encountered in China so far, or at least it felt that way to me. And that was in spite of the fact that there were tons of armed guards everywhere we went. That was a little creepy and scary, but it was definitely offset by the friendliness of everyone else. I think this area was more strictly governed. It seemed more like a communist dictatorship, whatever that means. It was definitely different.

The city itself seemed a lot less polluted than the four cities we'd been in so far. But it was extremely dusty. It was covered in a layer of dust that the wind did not blow away.

The Chaoyang People's Hall was a smaller venue and it seemed like a very happy festive friendly place. Apparently it wasn't up to par on a number of different fronts, but I had a blast playing there.

The trip from Jinzhou to Chaoyang was a relatively short bus ride through a more isolated, slightly mountainous region.

The other bus broke down on the way so we spent some time at a truck stop waiting for them to get going again. I don't remember the details but we weren't there for very long.

Our room was charming and clean, unlike some of the other places we'd been, and it had a warm and inviting color scheme. Unfortunately we didn't get to actually spend the night there because we had to leave at 1:00 AM for our night on the bus.

Down in the lobby some of the hotel workers were practicing some kind of fan dance. They looked like China's answer to pompom girls.

The area outside of the theater was festooned with all sorts of banners and bright lights. It was really fun to get off the bus and be greeted by all of this.

Here's a stage shot of the Chaoyang People's Hall:

And here's the bass section of the "New York Symphony"

After the concert we went back to the hotel for another fabulous meal and about an hour of relaxation before we took off on our all night bus ride to Beijing.

China Day Five - Jinzhou

2011-12-26T04:28:00.004-05:00

I've noticed that my day number designations are one day off from the itinerary that they gave us for our trip, but I guess that doesn't really matter. Our itinerary booklet shows our day of flying to Beijing as Day One and Day Two starts at 11:30 PM(huh?)in Beijing with our arrival at the airport and the short night in the hotel. That felt to me like one very long day of travel ending with a night in the hotel. The day was 13 hours longer than usual and we crossed the international dateline. But whatever. To me a day is not complete until it ends with a few hours of sleep in a bed.

I do not mind long hours of travel at all. The time on the plane actually went by fairly quickly. I love going new places and the long hours of travel are part of that process. As long as I get some sleep each night in a bed, I am happy.

At one of the venues they had Mandarin oranges and Doug got all hoardy with the ones that weren't eaten by the end of the concert. He started out with three ziplock bags full of them. He ate tons of those oranges on this trip and actually replenished his supply a few times.

I was also maintaining a stash but my thing was to stock up on was the bottled water they provided at the venues. The tap water in China is not safe to drink. You can't brush your teeth with it or have drinks with ice in them. I definitely will not miss having to rinse my toothbrush with bottled water and having to keep my mouth clamped shut while taking a shower.

Here are the bags of oranges that Doug picked up in Dalian:

I remember very little about our time in Jinzhou, except that we travelled there by bus, not on a train or airplane, and the name of our downtown hotel was Elite International Business Hotel and the venue was the Riverside of Rhine Concert Hall. I'm not sure why it had such a non-Chinese sounding name.

We were greeted by a statue of Chairman Mao as we entered the lobby:

The stage in Jinzhou had a lavish backdrop that was a photo of a Chinese orchestra and chorus playing on the same stage. We played in front of this backdrop - you can see people setting up in the foreground. We performed at several of the top concert halls in China and they were always quite lavish, with some occasionally bordering on gaudy. There were often balcony seats behind and all around the stage which was fun because it felt like we were closer to the audience. Most of the audiences were very enthusiastic. Some were more reserved, but all were very polite.

China Day Four - Dalian

2011-12-25T14:49:00.003-05:00

The first few days of concerts are all very much a blur to me now so I'm relying heavily on these photos to jog my memory. They aren't very interesting photos, but they are representative of what I saw. I didn't always remember to take a picture of each concert hall and hotel room and the pictures out of the bus window are not particularly interesting either. But they do represent what this portion of the trip was like. My main impression of these first several days of concerts can be summed up like this: travel, eat, play a concert, eat, sleep, eat, travel, eat, play a concert, eat, sleep, eat, travel, eat, play a concert, eat, etcetera, with the concert being the highlight of each day.

We played some Christmas carols at the first few concerts so that the audience could do a sing-along and we had our own delightful session of Christmas caroling on the bus on Christmas day, accompanied on the ukelele by one of our trombonists, who happens to be a Flying Karamazov Brother in real life. China seems to be very much into Christmas decorations and Santa Claus. Every place we went had fancy and festive decorations.

Our first four concerts were in the northeast section of China, well north of Beijing. The weather there was cold, windy, and very dry.

Here we are on the bus for the airport to fly from Qingdao to Dalian:

Qingdao Airport:

Getting on the plane:

This was taken from the bus window as we headed to our hotel in Dalian. This was a typical scene everywhere we visited or passed through - huge apartment complexes under construction. I guess they are getting ready for their population to double or triple or quadruple.

The view from our window at the Everbright Hotel. I promptly started calling it the Ever Dim Hotel.

China Day Three, Qingdao Concert

2011-12-24T10:05:00.003-05:00

After two rather long days of travel we had a chance for a little rest and relaxation before our first performance in China. I think we slept about 12 hours that night. When I got up I checked out the view and then thought I'd check out the panorama feature on my new camera.

We decided to go out and walk around. The beach was about three blocks from our hotel, so that of course was the first place we went. I love the beach in any kind of weather, but it was very COLD. And even though it was a sunny day, it was hazy from pollution, or so I've been told. Nevertheless, it was nice to see the the water and walk on the sand and pretend that it was warmer than it actually was.

Reality struck when I saw my first Chinese toilet. I had forgotten about these things, which I first encountered in Japan years ago. Yuck! I'll leave it at that.

So we walked and walked all morning long and saw a bunch of buildings and the beach. It was nothing to write home about - it kind of reminded me of the skyscraper section of Ocean City in the wintertime, only colder.

After lunch we decided to ride a bus into downtown, just so that we could see more of the city. Things are very spread out and it was too far to walk. The bus we took in went along the seaside and I had a chance to do another panorama shot.

The route back to the hotel was more inland and I had a chance to take a picture of the theater where we were playing that night. It's actually quite a bit bigger than it looks in the photo below. That was a very large dog.

China Day Two, Beijing to Qingdao

2011-12-23T09:31:00.003-05:00

We got approximately five hours of much needed sleep at our hotel in Beijing before it was time to head out the next day by bus to to catch our high speed train to Qingdao, the location of our first concert.

Before we left I took a picture of the view from our Beijing hotel. There were many tall buildings nearby and in the distance. At the train station I saw a very tall wedding dress.

The view from the train, which was our first real view of China was kind of depressing. There are some areas in northern China that are always hazy from the pollution. The rural areas reminded me of parts of Mexico. Kind of dusty and desolate.

Quite often, right in the middle of nowhere, there would be huge apartment complexes being built. I suspect that that these many buildings are being put up in preparation for new factories, but I can't say for sure.

It was early evening when we arrived at the train station in downtown Qingdao. We then spent about an hour in horrendous traffic on the bus trip to our hotel on the edge of town. Fortunately the hotel was part of the theater complex where we would be performing the next day.

At 7:30 PM they served us a 14 course banquet. It was the first of many banquets that we would have on this tour. Every meal we had in Qingdao was wonderful.

China Day One, NYC to China

2011-12-22T07:44:00.002-05:00

We stayed in Connecticut with one of my college roommates while we were rehearsing and playing our two concerts in NYC. She dropped us off at the train station in Bridgeport at about 7AM the day of our flight. We weren't very awake as we were approaching NYC and we missed our chance to get off at the 125th Street Station during the two seconds that the door was open. So we rode on down to Grand Central and took another train back up. It was very nice that we didn't have to pay extra for this little blunder.

From 125th we caught the M30 bus to LaGuardia in plenty of time for our 11:30 report time. The plane finally took off for Chicago at 3PM.

The twelve hour flight to Beijing left Chicago at 8PM, Chicago time, and arrived at 11:30 PM, Beijing time, which is the equivalent of 10:30 AM, eastern time. So our total travel time for that first day was about 28 hours.

After going through baggage and customs, at the Beijing airport, we arrived at our hotel at 2:00 AM.

CHINA!!!

2011-12-21T06:48:00.003-05:00

Well I'm back, surprise, surprise. For a while there it seemed like Facebook, which I finally got around to joining at the end of October, was destined to completely replace blogging as my primary recreational online activity. Although I still enjoy reading blogs, I would definitely say that my own material has been in a serious state of decline for quite some time. Facebook just makes it so easy to see what my pals in real life are doing and what they are thinking about. And there's also a whole lot more silliness happening on Facebook, which I obviously find quite appealing.

Anyway, I'm here in China for a couple of weeks, touring with the fabulous and award-winning Park Avenue Chamber Symphony , aka the New York Symphony for the time that we are in China. I feel very fortunate to have been given an opportunity to tour with this very excellent group. And they even gave me a nice fuzzy red scarf!

We have an extremely grueling schedule, which I will detail in future posts, but people in this group are wonderful to travel with and it is a thrill to be able to perform in so many cities all over eastern China.

Yellow Trucks on a Rainy Day

2011-11-17T00:00:00.001-05:00

I was waiting for Doug to get his brass and suddenly became very bored. So I decided to engage myself in a little bit of impressionistic photography. These are some trucks across the parking lot shot through my wet windshield.

Staying in a similar color scheme, the walls in our yellow bathroom are decorated with old cat-themed sheet music. I recently happened to be visiting the Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra's website and discovered, to my great amusement and delight that they have a music sample posted for the first song on my wall, the one entitled Meow. If you'd like to hear what this lively one-step from 1918 sounds like, then just click here: MEOW! Enjoy!

September Skies

2011-09-29T13:30:00.000-04:00

Taken through the cracked windshield of my car.

Buzzards

2011-09-23T14:50:00.000-04:00

We are having another dreary, depressing, and overly moist September day. Even the birds look gloomy. I guess those buzzards are just sitting up there in that tree waiting for roadkill to happen.

No Electricity Needed: Making do in style at Dempsey's in Ashton

2011-08-29T22:56:00.000-04:00

In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene there are still quite a number of areas without power. People are suffering and so are businesses. Fortunately the weather has been pleasant.

We had a little unexpected fun this evening when we decided to skip the Aspen Hill traffic and go out to the post office in Ashton instead. We used to go to this shopping center pretty often during the five years that we lived out in Cloverly and it's fun to go back there from time to time. Going to Ashton, with it's small town country feel, is kind a nice escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday suburbia.

There seemed to be a party going on out in front of Dempsey's restaurant so we decided to go down and check it out.

That's when we found out that they were in the half of the shopping center that didn't have power but they were remaining open in spite of that fact. They had an outdoor grill set up and they were cooking hot dogs, hamburgers, and ribs.

They weren't serving people inside, but they had a bunch of tables set up outside around the grill.

Since we are already fans of Dempsey's restaurant we decided to stay there and show our support instead of heading over to Urban Barbeque the way we had originally planned.

The burgers were excellent, and although I was pretty full already, Doug started talking about ordering some ribs. Just then the waitress came over and asked us if we'd like to have some chocolate cake. We took her up on that and we're glad we did. Deep dark devil's food cake, with deep dark chocolate shavings and whipped cream. Yummy!

An added bonus was that local country blues legend Warner Williams was there singing and playing guitar. How often does it happen that a trip to the post office ends in such a fabulous way?

Some of the regulars were there too, enjoying the food and the music. They are planning to be open tomorrow morning for breakfast (their best meal in my opinion) power or no power. Their food will be safe to eat at least until 4pm. At that time, if power is not restored, they will have to throw everything out, so if you are able to patronize this local restaurant for breakfast or lunch tomorrow, please do so.

Here are a couple of samples of Warner Williams that I found on Youtube:

South Carolina Skies

2011-08-17T21:41:00.001-04:00

There's nothing like a trip down South in the summertime. I took a little trip with my roommate from college down to South Carolina to visit her mother for a few days. Right after we passed the Giant Peach on I-85, the sky started to go crazy with heavy and rapidly shifting clouds.

Whew!

2011-07-31T11:07:00.000-04:00

Well I made it through my month of daily postings, or daily drivel if you will. I have two blogs so if I didn't post here then I put something over on the house blog every single day this month. The latest exciting news over at at the house blog is that we now have gutters on our house.

Anyway, here are my conclusions from this little exercise that I gave myself for the month of July:

Yaaay! I don't have to do it anymore!
I'm glad I did it and it feels good to see a goal through to completion.
I don't know how you daily bloggers do it year after year.
I'm not sure, but I think that blogging might have just been a temporary hobby for me to amuse myself during a certain phase of my existence.
That phase definitely seems to be over but I might not be be done with blogging just yet.
I still enjoy reading other people's blogs more than I do writing my own.
Goals are good.

Life is good!

Luna

2011-07-30T19:05:00.000-04:00

Today I was mowing the grass and came upon this lovely caterpillar. Doug looked it up and found out that it is probably a Luna moth caterpillar.

Chanticleer Garden

2011-07-29T23:47:00.001-04:00

Yesterday we went to Chanticleer Garden up near Philadelphia. It's an easy day trip from DC and well worth the effort. I hadn't ever heard of this place until very recently when I got to see a book my friend's daughter had been working on. She did quite a bit of editing and selecting of photos for a this very beautiful book that has just come out called Chanticleer, A Pleasure Garden. I've been wanting to see the gardens in person ever since I saw the book.

Anyway I'm pooped again, so I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Lace Head Hydrangeas

Look! a frog!

five fairly substantial sycamores growing out of one original tree stump

Fun in Philly

2011-07-28T23:59:00.002-04:00

We somehow ended up going to Philadelphia today and had a splendid time, which I am too exhausted to go into at the moment. So these pictures will have to do for now. . . . .

Count Basie in the Movies

2011-07-27T12:25:00.000-04:00

I'd seen this before but somebody sent it to me again today and I just had to share. Jerry Lewis sits down at the boss's desk and starts pantomiming to Basie's "Blues in Hoss's Flat The best part is where he starts laughing near the end.

And that reminded me of another famous incident of Count Basie in the movies - the scene in Blazing Saddles where the new sheriff comes across the Basie band playing "April In Paris" out in the middle of the desert. Hilarious! Youtube would not let me embed this one minute video, so here's the link:

Count Basie, Blazing Saddles, April in Paris

Enjoy!

I Hate Sewing, Part 2

2011-07-26T21:05:00.000-04:00

The stupid slipcover continues to kick my butt - physically, not mentally. However the tediousness of so many L O N G seams is causing my brain to go dull. It is an incredibly boring and monotonous process to make this thing, although I really did enjoy planning it and figuring out the changes I wanted to make to the pattern. Unfortunately that means it has about four times as many seams as it would otherwise. Well it won't get done unless I continue plodding away on it.

In other news, this seems to be a summer of Hawaiian shirt gigs. I thought last Saturday would be it, but no....it's been decided that the attire for this Sunday (different band) is also going to be Hawaiian shirts and khaki shorts. Fortunately I don't have to wear the cellophane shirt again because a friend of mine offered me one of her husband's old shirts. It's a really pretty shirt and best of all - it's made of rayon so it will be cool and comfortable.

I HATE SEWING ! ! !

2011-07-25T21:34:00.008-04:00

This stupid slipcover is taking absolutely forever! I am completely annoyed with how slow it's been going. Of course I'm making it up as I go along so it's my fault that it's taking longer than it needs to, but still...Well it's going to look really nice when it's finished. Here's a preview:

They didn't have quite enough of the main fabric (which was only $3.00 a yard!) to do the whole thing exactly according to the pattern so I decided to get all fancy with the contrasting piping around the arm seams. I'm going to have a two inch elasticized band of the same material going all around the bottom of the main section, with matching ties for the front, if I have enough of that fabric, and then the skirt will be a slightly washed out silky black fabric which will be gathered into a slight ruffle around the very bottom. I know that all sounds really weird, but I have a vision. And if it turns out to be a miserable failure, at least I didn't waste too much money on it.

Meanwhile, as of today I am crushing on, or enamored with, or slightly fascinated by a new category of men. I know there are those of you out there who have a thing for rock stars, or hockey players, or firemen, or whatever, but I've just discovered a whole new world of men in the upholstery business. Check them out - they have much more useful things to say than most men do, and they really know what they are talking about. The Men of Upholstery. Hey - I should do a calendar!

Here's Bubba Austin. He's a real manly man, no-nonsense kind of guy, but kind of adorable at the same time. I like watching him sew.

This next video features Ron from Canada. You never know what you're going to find inside an old antique sofa. And he knows when to keep quiet and let the video do the talking.

And Mike here, with his tough guy accent, is gonna tell you everything you need to know about the different types of foam that can be used for cushions.

goals and freedom

2011-07-24T21:32:00.002-04:00

Without being too rigid about it, I've decided to start being a little more goal-oriented. Although I am apparently quite capable of putting my life on hold for who knows how long (5 years comes to mind) I am probably much more the kind of person who finds freedom in structure and setting some smaller goals and seeing them through to completion will hopefully be a great way to free myself from the dreaded "ought" disease and its accompanying guilt. Of course all of the goals I'm setting involve things I ought to do so I guess there's no escaping it.

So to kick it off, I decided that this would be the summer that I help the 2500 liriope plants that I planted in 2007 to finally beat the weeds. In order for this to happen, I need to beat the weeds myself and then put down mulch and hopefully the liriope will take it from there. I think I have about five more days of pulling weeds ahead of me in order to accomplish this goal. The only real problem is that it KILLS my hands and I need to take days off here and there just to let them recover. But I don't want to take any days off - I just want to get it done as soon as possible. So that I can be free of needing to do it anymore. But it's hard to stop. I'm somewhat obsessed with getting it done right now.

To help myself get into the right frame of mind to want engage in such a miserable task, I thought it might be useful to launch a parallel activity that I would be able to do every day no matter how exhausted I was physically. So I made another goal to do a blog post either here or on my house blog every single day this month. I've discovered that it is quite difficult to come up anything intelligent to say when I'm in a state of total physical exhaustion. But so far I've managed to do one post each day and I only have a week to go! And then I'll be free of the obligation I made to myself. And the people who visit my blog will be free of the random crap I've been posting recently.

Another goal that is not moving along as well because I haven't given it any definite parameters yet is the slipcover for the couch. If I'd had a goal of working on it for one hour each day it would be finished already. But that hasn't happened because I'm either too exhausted from pulling weeds or I have a blog post to write. If I don't get it finished by the end of the month, I'm going to set a goal of sewing for one hour each day and I'm going to include all of the curtains in that goal as well. They are all cut and ready to go and it shouldn't take any time at all once I get started. And then the people who visit my house will be free of having to looking at my construction paper "curtains" and so will I.

So back to the weeding - here's what I've accomplished so far:

And here's what I still have left - it's a pretty long stretch, but I think it will go quickly if my hands can take it.

sweltering

2011-07-23T23:59:00.001-04:00

"Wearing this shirt feels just like wearing saran wrap" is what I texted to Doug a few minutes before my gig started this evening.

The uniform for the band this evening was a Hawaiian shirt and white or khaki shorts. I used to own a couple of Hawaiian shirts back before I lost all of my clothes and an occasion to wear one has not presented during the intervening years until this evening. I looked in a few stores but didn't see anything that I wanted to pay money for, and I really didn't feel like spending a whole lot of time shopping until I found something.

Hawaiian shirts do not seem to be as readily available this days - I guess they were more popular with the general public back in the 1990s. It's kind of a dated look, or retro if you prefer. Anyway, I knew that Doug had one and that he would let me borrow it. But it was so huge and loose that it looked terrible in spite of the fact that it was actually a very nice looking shirt, as Hawaiian shirts go.

I got out my sewing machine and took in the sides with a basting stitch so that I could easily rip out the seams after I finished borrowing it this evening. It looked a lot better after I fitted it and it only took about two minutes. I was very pleased that I was able to get by without a bunch of time spent shopping.

But OMG, after I loaded my stuff onto the stage at the very unairconditioned Glen Echo, I was completely drenched. The shirt felt fine in my house and in my car, but it doesn't breathe AT ALL. It literally felt like I was wearing saran wrap. I guess I should have expected that since it is 100% polyester. That'll teach me.

So I guess I'll be keeping an eye out for a cotton or rayon Hawaiian shirt to have in case I sub on this gig again. They probably have a much better selection of these kinds of shirts down at the beach. I hope.

I really need to start doing a better job of replacing my gig wardrobe. There are lots of different types of outfits that are required from certain bands, especially in the summertime, and I used to have everything I'd ever need for any type of gig. It's very inconvenient to have to run out and pick something up at the last minute. And I don't want to have to resort to wearing a shirt that feels like Saran Wrap ever again.

It's that time of year again....

2011-07-22T14:56:00.008-04:00

Apple Time!

This one smells good.

My tongue is bigger than your tongue.

Hey! Watch me chew some apples!

stream of consciousness from a dull and tired brain

2011-07-21T11:44:00.001-04:00

I can barely stay awake. Let's see.....what did I do today? Wrote some emails. Pulled weeds for 2 hours. Spent another hour putting down mulch. A bag of mulch weighs 85 pounds. Went to the dump. Came home and took a shower. Went to a concert. Came home and thought about tunes for tomorrow's gig. Didn't get too far due to tiredness. Remembered at the last minute that I had pledged to myself that I would post daily for the month of July. Wrote this lame post. Good night!

Gnatfest 2011

2011-07-20T23:30:00.002-04:00

Has anyone else noticed the huge quantities of gnats that have been hovering around everywhere this summer? I can't remember when they were as bad as they've been this year, especially around the end of June and the first part of July. When the weather got a little drier last week, they were suddenly gone. But today they were definitely back, aggressively swirling around my face, hoping I would open my mouth so they could fly on in. It is extremely annoying when that happens!

It's kind of weird to think about the fact that when the outside air temperature gets as high as it was today and will be through the weekend, the various entry points such as the mouth, nose, and ears probably seem like a delightfully cool dark cave for those gnats so of course they are going to fly on in.

And that's as deep as it's going to get today. My mind has been dulled by endless weeding and my main area of focus today, besides weeding and putting down mulch, was to not let any gnats fly into my mouth.

Hey - that last sentence just reminded me of my very favorite line from the Pirates of Penzance:

My mind has long been gnawed by the cankering tooth of mystery.

I love that sentence, but why in the world did I think about that just then? Maybe I was hoping I wouldn't get gnawed by gnats and that caused it to suddenly pop out from one of the reserves deep in my brain. Or maybe I've suffered brain damage due to heat stroke or dehydration. And with that thought I bid you gnighty gnight.

Doors in Annapolis

2011-07-19T21:29:00.000-04:00

I don't think I'm really a door wreath kind of person, at least not for my own house. But that did not stop me from photographing a bunch of wreathes on doors in Annapolis. Aren't they lovely? The bottom one is my favorite.

up to my neck in weeds!

2011-07-18T15:20:00.001-04:00

I have made it my mission this summer to eliminate all eyesores from our yard. The final frontier is a long-neglected hillside which contains a bunch of half dead azaleas, liriope, and huge quantities of overgrown weeds.

I cleared out a space by the fence so that I could set my footstool up there and when I sat down I realized how high these weeds were. It's been an exhausting process but I think I only need one more day to finish the larger area towards the front. My hands have been complaining, but I think they'll survive.

Also I have no idea why my hair looks that color. It is actually light brown/dark blonde. Maybe the sun was shining on it funny.

It's time to go outside and enjoy the weather!

2011-07-16T14:00:00.001-04:00

If you are indoors this afternoon reading this blog post, I order you to go spend some time outside at once! The air is fresh and clear and there's a delightful breeze. It's the best kind of summer weather we ever get around here - it makes even an afternoon of weeding seem like fun.

Enjoy it while you can!

The Friendly Goats of Wright's Market

2011-07-14T21:24:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite things to do on the way home from the beach is to stop and visit the very friendly goats at Wright's Market.

They love to be petted.

Love it!

They get so sad when you stop. But we wanted to go visit the other goats and the giant steer. They all dashed over from the other side of the pen to greet us.

Watch the stampede! Here they come!

The steer is very sociable. When you say hello to him he says hello back.

Isn't he handsome? And he has his very own mini-me too except that this one happens to be a goat mini-me.

After we did a little shopping and got some fresh homemade ice cream we saw that we weren't the only ones who were having a treat.

Yummy cantaloupe!

Yum Yum Yum ! ! !

Another Trip to the Beach

2011-07-13T23:20:00.001-04:00

One of my goals for this summer is to get down to the beach for at least one day each month. So far I've made it down there in June and I've got days already scheduled for July and August, so it's promising to be a great summer. It's been excellent so far.

Every couple of years there is a new "thing" that is sold or displayed at the various roadside stands along the way. For a long time it was huge quantities of very life-like plastic Canadian geese. The new thing this year seems to be these wooden eagles in a nest. We saw them displayed a couple of different places on the way down. Aren't they cute?

I bought my season pass to Assateague. They got all decorative with the card this year.

It was kind of a hazy day, but the air temperature and the water temperature were both perfect.

On the way out we saw some horses in the distance:

And up close.

There was a giant crab-shaped cloud looming in the sky which somehow caused us to not be in the mood for crabcake sandwiches this time.

It looks like the front porch fell off the chia house sometime over the winter.

We stopped at Darnell's Grille in Easton for rockfish and fried chicken.

And we finally got to the Bay Bridge right around sunset. How do like those cracks in my windshield?

irritation of the day

2011-07-10T12:37:00.003-04:00

Why in the world is "chillax" floating around in my head today? As in "Maybe I should just chillax instead of trying to get in two hours of grass mowing before my concert this afternoon." I repeat - How did that word manage to implant itself in my brain? Well at least it's not nearly as bad as "fantabulous" which people used to say all the time but my super snotty younger self would never stoop to using. I do think "chillax" is slightly cooler than "fantabulous" but I don't think I would intentionally say either of them out loud unless I was being facetious. So go away, chillax, and stop being an earworm in my brain. Sheesh!

chillax, chillax, chillax, chillax, chillax, chillax, chillax.
There, maybe it's gone now.
I'm off to mow the grass.

Monticello

2011-07-09T23:10:00.001-04:00

After a completely exhausting week of wall building and weeding it was time to take a break and go on a little excursion. My roommate from college had to go down to Charlottesville and back from Philadelphia today and to break up the trip a bit she picked me up to go along for the ride. We decided to also go to Monticello while we were down that way. I'd visited there before, but it was a long time ago.

Monticello is a fascinating study in custom do-it-yourself architecture in an old school setting. It was very interesting to see how Jefferson managed to incorporate so many of his own original ideas as it applied to making the house more practical and convenient and at the same time attractive and stylistically correct. He truly made the house his own, and I can totally relate to that considering what we've been up to for the past five years or so. It's an extremely interesting and beautiful place to visit and I highly recommend it.

On the way out we decided to stop and get some peaches at the Carter Family Orchard. That involved driving practically straight up the next mountain over. The view at the top was well worth it and the photo below does not even begin to do it justice. Plus it has that annoying smudge in the sky (or on my camera lens).

And for old times sake we went to Chick Filet. Twice. I had the exact same thing for lunch and dinner - the basic sandwich with nothing except pickles and mayonnaise - and it was equally delicious both times. Thankfully the Krispy Kreme seemed to be gone, which saved us from more fully over-reenacting some of our more unfortunate South Carolina eating habits in Charlottesville, VA.

blurry deer pix

2011-07-08T23:22:00.002-04:00

I don't know what it is about our back yard, but we frequently come home to find two or three deer relaxing in the grass at all times of the year. Tonight it was two bucks with medium size antlers. When I pulled in to the driveway they just sat there and did not look particularly concerned, so I kept my lights shining on them and gave Doug a call. He grabbed my camera and snuck out the front door so that he'd be able to take some pictures without startling them.

These pictures are not the greatest, because the only light was from my headlights, but here you can sort of make them out sitting in the grass.

The one on the right got up first.

Then the one on the left started to get up.

They stood there for a few minutes before they ambled off.

Clouds

2011-07-07T23:38:00.001-04:00

CURLY CLOUD

MOON AND CLOUD

BLUE CLOUD

amazon

2011-07-06T23:31:00.001-04:00

We are installing a little retaining wall near our front steps and we had to go to Home Depot to get some gravel and masonry adhesive. I asked Doug if the stones we were using (which we didn't get at HD) were a particular brand. He said they were called "Rio". Since that means "river" in Spanish, my Benadryl (spider bites) soaked brain went straight to Rio Grande and Rio de Janeiro, and eventually to the dumb question of the day in which I demonstrate my ignorance of history and geography:

Why did the explorers name it the Amazon River when most of the people who come from that part of the world tend to be fairly short? Or did they name it that because the river is so huge?

I may be ignorant, but at least I'm curious, so I just looked it up and found my answer here. Apparently an explorer named Francisco Orellana was attacked by a band of female warriors known as "Icamiabas" which means "women without husbands" and that made him think of the Amazons in Greek mythology so he named the river sort of in honor of his attackers.

I'm really glad I know that now and I have to say I like the idea of ferocious female warriors trying to protect their river from the evil intruders.

It's really kind of a challenge to come up with something to post each day, especially when I'm apparently perfectly happy to go three months without posting anything at all. So my posts will undoubtedly suffer a bit (or a lot) in quality as I write about random things that pop into my head, especially after spending the day under the influence of Benadryl.

I think I'll go make a slipcover for the couch now.

Meet Me In St. Louis

2011-07-05T23:20:00.001-04:00

Today I subbed for a friend on a rehearsal of "Meet Me in St. Louis." I was kind of curious to find out how it would feel to play that show again after all this time. "Meet Me in St. Louis" was the very first national tour I did and it was a major turning point for me as a bass player.

I had taken up the bass as a casual hobby after I finished college and I was having a lot of fun playing gigs here and there in addition to having a full studio of piano students, but a couple of months before the tour came up I had decided it was time to quit fooling around with the bass so much and start being more serious about the piano again.

That notion was completely derailed when this once in a lifetime (I thought) opportunity presented itself to me. I had friends who had toured with this same company and it seemed like they had all had such an amazing experience. With my late start on the bass, I couldn't imagine I would ever have a chance to do it too, so I had to say YES! when they called.

I felt terribly guilty about leaving my students in the middle of the year, but I managed to either find them substitute teachers or design independant study plans for them for the time I was gone. They all stepped up to the plate and did excellent work while I was away. I was so proud of them all.

The first thing I noticed about life on the road was how completely free I felt for the first time in my entire life. I had always had a real sense of diligence about working as many hours as possible and a strong feeling of obligation towards the people I worked for, whether it was employers or my students.

On the tour there were long hours on the bus, but you could spend them however you wanted. You could do whatever you felt like doing without having to answer to anyone during your free time, which was in a new city practically every day . I went to the beach in LA, I skiied every day before the show during the five days we were in Salt Lake City, I went to jazz clubs, I worked out a lot, and I had an absolute blast. The freedom was completely exhilerating. I loved playing the show so that didn't feel like work. The pay was decent so there were no financial worries. What a great life!

The other musicians came from all over and most had always earned their livings as performers rather than teachers. I had never considered that for myself before but there I was doing exactly that. I learned about other travel opportunities for musicians and I was completely fascinated by the idea of working on a cruise ship.

When I got home I spent the next three years gradually easing out of piano teaching and preparing to become "just" a bass player. A couple of months after I stopped teaching I did my first cruise contract which took me all over the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, up the west coast of Mexico, across the Atlantic to Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, and Greece. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would end up doing that much travelling. I loved it and I loved that way of life and I have "Meet Me in St. Louis" to thank for heading me down that path.

At the rehearsal I tried to kind of stand back from myself and observe how I felt as I was playing through that music once again, wondering whether I would relive some of those rather earth-shattering (to me) old feelings. Nope. I felt happy and appreciative, but mostly I noticed that the music, in addition to being as delightful now as it was then, was very very easy. It didn't feel that way back then, because everything was a challenge with my barely-there playing skills. Now that show is a piece of cake.

So I guess that was a kind of anti-climatic little story. Maybe it's because these days I feel like the new experiences that lie ahead for me will be even more exciting than all of the great things that have already happened. I just don't know what those new experiences will be yet! And maybe they'll be exciting in a completely different way - who knows?

just another day....

2011-07-04T23:59:00.001-04:00

We did not do anything even remotely related to the 4th of July today. Instead we pulled a giant tree stump out of the ground and went to see a lovely movie called Bride Flight. I usually tend to avoid movies with "bride" in the title, but this one looked interesting and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. It's about four people from Holland who leave to start a new life in New Zealand after WWII. It's a beautiful movie. Go see it - it's playing at the Avalon and in Shirlington.

Endless Summer

2011-07-03T12:02:00.001-04:00

Did you all hear the thunderstorm in the middle of the night last night?

Today Doug asked me if I knew whether it had rained alot last night. When I asked him why he wanted to know that, he said that sometime in the middle of the night last night I woke him up and said "Be quiet - I'm trying to listen to the thunderstorm!" Well he was probably snoring so loudly that I couldn't hear the thunder outside. And the snoring was probably the main reason I was awake enough to want to hear thunder instead. I really can't remember now though - it's all kind of a blur.

In other news, I've been longing to get some hydrangeas for about ten years now. Today we finally bought a pair of them, along with some deer repellent. They are called Endless Summer. I really like that name and I can't wait to get them planted!

Rockin' in Rhythm

2011-07-02T18:58:00.003-04:00

So already on day two of my attempted month of daily posts I have not much to say. Instead I'm just going to throw up a video from a gig we played a couple of days ago. That's all I've got today.

weeds

2011-07-01T17:00:00.001-04:00

Hello Blog....Have you missed me? I'm not sure why I've been so neglectful of you lately. I still spend time reading and commenting on other people's blogs but I've totally ignored my own. I'm so sorry. I'm going to try to make it up to you by posting every single day this month. If not here, then on the other one. We'll see how that goes, but so far I'm one for one. The topic for today is WEEDS. My level of involvement with weeds has been fairly high recently. I know what you're thinking - hahaha - but no such luck. I just write that way. I've been pulling a lot of weeds.

In 2007 we planted a whole bunch of liriope in our front yard in the areas that were too hilly to mow. It was a huge quantity, much more than I would have planted if I'd had my way. I was out of town when Doug took it upon himself to order 2500 little plants. 2500! Planting all of those was a miserable and exhausting experience, let me tell you. And I ended up with carpal tunnel syndrome thanks to that. After that the front yard got torn up a few more times for various installations and each time I had to spread more grass seed, a bunch of it would always blow into the liriope. It was a mess and I have been looking the other way until this spring when I decided this would be the year to help the liriope do what it's supposed to do - spread like crazy and choke out everything else. So far that has not happened due to my neglect. But this year I am going to make it my mission to get that damn liriope looking the way it should. Here's what I've done so far:

See that one in the picture below that looks like a liriope on steroids? It's actually a little piece of an iris that survived the fire and the subsequent demolition of our house. It's been hiding in the dirt all this time. I'm going to leave it there for sentimental reasons. A long time ago my friend JoAnn gave me a bunch of irises that she had pulled from her garden. They did so well that I ended up with a whole bed of them. When it came time for us to tear down our house I pulled them all up and gave some to the neighbors and some back to JoAnn. I thought they were gone for good so it makes me very happy to see that one of them is still around. And the fact that it looks like a giant liriope amuses me to no end.

The weeds on the hill next to our neighbor's fence are completely out of control. It is going to take me weeks to pull all of them out, and I am not looking forward to it. It kills my hands. Right now I'm taking a break to let them recover.

Two weeks later they were all in bloom. They look kind of pretty now. Maybe I should just leave them as they are. But there's liriope under there! About half of the 2500 plants are next to that fence. I do not want to have gotten carpel tunnel syndrome for nothing, so I'm going to go after them soon.

Speaking of weeds, this is what is growing in the traffic island directly in front of my driveway. As weeds go, they are rather pretty, don't you think? Perhaps I should start calling them wildflowers from now on.

Last Day

2011-03-15T14:43:00.005-04:00

For the last day of our trip, our goal was to drive along the coast as much as possible, hit the beach, have a nice meal, and get back to the airport in time for our early evening flight. When we arrived at Deer Lake State Park we knew we had found our beach:

We found our nice meal at Uncle Ernie's in the very picturesque St. Andrews section of Panama City. It seems like every single meal we had on this trip was outstanding, and the grouper sandwich at Uncle Ernie's was no exception.

The dock of the restaurant where we had lunch. I guess some people go there by boat.

People who live in Florida get to have their very own orange tree right in their back yard.

Tire Art - this house's side yard was full of hanging parrot planters mad out of tires.

Heading Home

The Endless Horizon

High Altitude Sunset

Mississippi and Mobile

2011-03-14T14:09:00.002-04:00

We left New Orleans with our stomachs full and happy, thanks to the delicious beignets and cafe au lait from Cafe du Monde. Our plan for the day was to go to the beach somewhere in Mississippi on our way back to Florida. We went to the beach in Alabama when we were on tour, and we stayed in a casino one time in Gulfport, Mississippi but we didn't have time to hit the beach, so today was the day.

We turned off the highway at the earliest possible place and drove along the coast most of the way through Mississippi. It looks like they have big plans for the Mississippi coast one of these years. A lot of it is under construction. They are building a huge sidewalk/concrete boardwalk between the sand and the road that goes for miles and miles. There's lots of parking right next to the beach so it's very convenient for a quick visit. We ended up going to the beach in Gulfport because that's where the sun finally came out.

Gulfport, Mississippi

A Mississippi Mockingbird

This where we had a late lunch after the beach. It's a super fun place and it is indeed a huge shed.

The barbeque was some of the best I've ever had. The coleslaw was amazing too!

Most of the highway through Alabama looked like this, especially near Mobile.

New Orleans

2011-03-13T13:32:00.002-04:00

In spite of all of my touring and other traveling, and the fact that I've always wanted to see it, I had never been to New Orleans before. I saw that it was only three hours from Pensacola, but it was three hours in the wrong direction from the airport and three hours back, plus another 2+ hours to Panama City, so we decided to skip it so that we'd have less driving and more beach time. Although it seemed a shame not to go when it was so close, we decided to stay in relaxation mode.

Our host Don had prepared an incredible meal for us the night before - he is truly a gourmet cook. We were planning to just chill out on the beach the next day, but we woke up uncharacteristically early and noticed that we were both sufficiently sunburned to the point that it would be better to take a day off from going to the beach, so we packed up and headed off to New Orleans after all.

New Orleans was wonderful and when I go back it needs to be for longer than a day and a half. But this time a day and a half was perfect! We stayed in the Garden District, rode the trolley to the French Quarter, walked for hours and hours, heard some jazz, and had fabulous meals. And on our way out of town the next day we picked up some beignets and cafe au lait from Cafe du Monde.

Ft. Pickens at Pensacola Beach

2011-03-12T12:01:00.004-05:00

Ft. Pickens is on the western end of the strand that is Pensacola Beach. It was originally built during the Civil War and I think it remained in use through WWII, but it is now a historical site.

Ft Pickens has a somewhat ghostly, kind of otherworldly quality, and the scenery is almost surreal. The lens on my camera seems to be in a bit of a state of decline, but the pristine beauty of the water and the sand managed to shine through in spite of that.

Pensacola!

2011-03-09T11:16:00.072-05:00

I'm finally getting to take a real vacation. It's the first one in ages. I don't even want to think about how long it's been. So you can imagine I was quite excited to be up amongst the clouds. I love riding on airplanes!

We flew into the new airport near Panama City because the airfare there was much cheaper than flying into Pensacola and we also wanted to visit some of that area as well.

We got to stay in a lovely Chinese-themed beach house, courtesy of our friends Don and Holly. The view from our bedroom almost looks like the view from a cabin on a cruise ship. It was both fun and relaxing to look out and see nothing but water.

Out on the back deck we had this view of a neighboring dock and you can see the bridge between Gulf Breeze and Pensacola Beach way off in the distance.

The birds on this dock were incredibly noisy every day at around 5 pm or so. It was pretty hilarious listening to them.

Snow and Signs at Twilight

2011-01-27T00:18:00.001-05:00

I got some interesting effects today taking pictures out of my car window in less than ideal light. The tree in the top picture has pink branches which are probably a result of all the brake lights going down the hill. I was sitting in a line of cars waiting to go up the hill on Randolph Road behind somebody who had gotten stuck, so I just rolled down my window and took a couple pictures of trees on the island next to me.

I used a flash on the one above. It seems like the flash turned all of the snowflakes into white globs, although I'm pretty sure some of the snowflakes actually were white globs.

Keeping the twilight theme going here, I noticed that the local Chinese buffet here in Glenmont had a couple of letters missing from its sign. Mayflow Buffet - It's both funny and slightly unappetizing, all at the same time. But that doesn't seem to stop people from eating there.

I took the picture below about a year ago. Would you shop at a department store named "Ears"? I love signs with missing letters!

In other news, we had a recent resurgence of activity working on our house. You can read all about it here.

Trial Turkey

2010-11-22T03:35:00.000-05:00

Since I haven't cooked a turkey in a really long time I decided that it might be a good idea to do a trial run before the big day. Although I am quite capable of making things that taste good, I do not consider myself to be much of a cook. It's not something I do for fun. I enjoyed it when I was a kid, but for most of my adult life I've had a barely functioning kitchen and/or I've been on the road, leading a life completely devoid of cooking. That's all over now, at least for the time being.

I was thinking back to the first turkey I had an actual hand in cooking. My roommate and I had our boyfriends over and the two of us did the whole thing together. Nothing went wrong and it tasted great - and that's all I can remember.

There was one Thanksgiving where Doug and I had both sets of parents over. That's all I know. I must have blocked the rest out. It was probably fine. Doug was probably running the show for that one, and people probably brought stuff. I really can't remember a thing about it.

So this year we are finally back in our house and we have our big fancy new kitchen, which for me is kind of the equivalent of walking around the mall in hiking boots or having a big rugged truck to drive to gigs in. I still shake my head at how ridiculously fancy it all is. Of course we don't have a lot of the basic things that a normal well stocked kitchen has - like enough forks, for example. We had to go out and buy a roasting pan and a carving knife, among other things. At least we have plenty of dishes. We didn't replace all of our kitchen stuff right away after the fire because we didn't have much room in our rental place. And now we don't have the money. That stuff is expensive!

Anyway, it's been my "turn" to have Thanksgiving now for close to 20 years, so I decided to go ahead and do it, ready or not. My brother is allergic to black pepper so I needed to figure out how to get a turkey that doesn't have mystery substances injected into it and figure out how to make it taste good without using any pepper.

We got a fresh 13 pound turkey from Giant on Friday and I finally got around to cooking it this evening. Since I don't have any cookbooks, I looked things up on the internet and watched a few videos on Youtube to learn how to do the various activities. There sure is a lot of conflicting information to sift through out there. So I just picked out the article or video that seemed like the best way to procede for each thing. My choices were highly subjective, that's for sure.

It really seems like individual creativity comes into play with most cooks almost immediately - judging from the various comments on each recipe or article, most people don't follow any recipe completely literally. It seems like they immediately start changing it without bothering to find out if the actual recipe is any good. I guess it's not necessary most of the time to follow recipes exactly, although I'll bet it matters a lot more with baking. I decided not to be too literal-minded about things, although I did clean the turkey very very meticulously, with a great deal of mocking from Doug.

So I figured out, based on some website that I liked enough to print out the pages, that I would cook the turkey in Doug's fancy-ass convection oven without brining it. They raved about their test turkeys that were cooked at 375 degrees for an hour and a half to two hours without brining and since I don't know any better, I went with that. I also decided not to stuff it because that makes things more complicated and it's safer not to stuff it. I'll have to figure out how to get the stuffing moist enough without being in the bird. Doug was helping a little bit until I kicked him out. I got him to stick a few onion quarters, a couple stalks of celery, and some sprigs of fresh rosemary inside the turkey before he started acting up.

Doug's convection oven has a probe thingy that you can supposedly put in the turkey and then attach the other end to the wall of the oven and when the turkey gets to the right temperature it turns the oven off. That kinds of creeps me out, and I was kind of relieved when it didn't register properly because then I could just use a meat thermometer like a normal person. We've never used that probe thing before and I didn't want to mess with it. But Doug did, and he wouldn't let it go. That's when I sent him downstairs.

He came back up a little while later to help me identify the liver, which I was not supposed to use in the broth. I'm such a non-cook that I wouldn't know a turkey liver if I saw one. Unfortunately that meant that he decided then and there to fix himself some fried turkey livers which stunk up the kitchen for a while. But eventually the fan took care of the smell.

He went back downstairs and once the turkey was well under way in the oven I spent my time going back and forth between the computer and the kitchen, looking up every little thing up that I needed to find out.

I made turkey stock to use in the gravy, and I made a roux out of butter and flour for the gravy too, and cleaned a bunch of pans and utensils.

Finally the bell rang to check the turkey. It was a beautiful medium golden brown. Unfortunately the turkey was apparently sitting low enough in the pan, in spite of it having a rack, that the convection browning action did not hit the bottom three inches. So I flipped it over and cooked it for another twenty minutes upside down. I don't think it was actually cooked all the way judging from the juice, so the extra time was good. But it ended up with a big dent on the top.

It's kind of ugly looking actually, but Doug declared it to be perfectly cooked. It was tender and juicy and delicious. He seemed kind of surprised at how well it turned out. And he was shocked at the excellence of my gravy. I think it will taste even better next time because this time I didn't do everything you are supposed to do. It still tasted pretty good and there were no lumps. I don't remember my mother or his ever doing roux or making broth to add to the gravy, so maybe that's why it was extra good. Next time I'm going to try deglazing the pan with white wine. So fancy-schmancy, yeah that's me alright.

Look at that dent! I'm paying big bucks for some kind of special fresh turkey from the Amish Market that I'll be picking up on Tuesday. I will not allow dents to happen in Thursday's turkey.

Meanwhile, I've already frozen most of the meat off of this turkey so it won't go bad and we'll have leftovers no matter what. I also froze the gravy so that it will keep until Thanksgiving. I'm going to have lots and lots of gravy.

Tomorrow I'm going to make more stock from tonight's turkey carcass so I won't have to mess with that again on Thursday while I'm trying to do everything else. Also tomorrow I'm going to get Doug to cut up and bake the butternut squash for the soup I'm going to make.

Here's my menu:

Butternut Squash Soup

Salad Greens with a vinaigrette that has mustard and shallots in it.

Turkey

Really Basic Stuffing - shredded white bread, celery, onion, sage, etc.

Mashed Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes

Spinach Souffle with fresh dill

Cranberry Sauce that my mother will make

Apple Sauce that Doug made from our tree

Whatever pies my sister-in-law brings.

That's probably enough, right? If it's not, then everyone will get to have the pleasant experience of not being miserably stuffed on Thanksgiving. That would be okay I think, as long as the food tastes good. I need to figure out where to use that fresh thyme I bought. Other than that, I think I'm good to go.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Blue Sparrow

2010-11-16T00:00:00.009-05:00

Last week after I got my hair cut, I was sitting in my car waiting for Doug to show up and passed the time by taking a few pictures out of my car window. I was trying to take a close up of a sparrow that was sitting on top of the hedge by my car, but he flew away so I ended up with a picture of this little cutie instead.

But the sparrow came back. I then noticed that his lighter feathers were blue! I didn't know that blue sparrows actually existed, so I googled it and found out that they've been spotted in Australia too, but some people still think that they don't exist. Anyway, this one was hanging out across from the Chipotle, next to the New Wave Salon on Rockville Pike. He almost looks like a parakeet in this photo, but he was definitely a sparrow as far as I can tell. The blue sparrow in Australia was prettier than the one I saw - the color is absolutely amazing! "My" sparrow is a little more subtle.

There's some additional discussion of the blue sparrow phenomenon on this website. Check it out, there's a really great photo there too.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I've been complaining, mostly to myself, about the pathetic lack of travel that exists in my life these days. My big trip to Delaware happened this past weekend. We played an Andrews Sisters show/concert at a casino for Veterans Day Weekend and stayed overnight since they had a room for us. It made me feel a bit nostalgic for my former life on the road because there were a lot of similarities - the 1940s theme, the army uniform, the enthusiastic crowd, the onstage big band, the meal before the gig, the hotel afterwards, etc, etc. After five years of not touring it was interesting to be able to observe what I miss and what I don't miss.

The next day we got up and went to Rehoboth since that was the closest beach. This will probably be my last beach trip this year - the other day trips (two of them) were to Assateague. I haven't been to Rehoboth in several years. We had to make it quick because my bass was in the car. It was parked in a shady spot, but I still don't like to leave it for very long.

We took a short walk on the beach, had a slice of Grotto Pizza, got some warm caramel corn at Dolle's for dessert, and stopped at the awesome coffee shop at the edge of town out by Route 1, so it was a completely satisfying Rehoboth experience except for the lack of beach time. The beach is kind of small at Rehoboth. And the sand is grayer than it is at Assateague.

The waves were huge! If the water had been warmer I would have gone in. I like big waves, especially out past the breakers, where they lift you up but you don't get smashed by them. I'm looking forward to next summer already!

And here are some more pictures of the blue sparrow in Australia. They are really fantastic, so go have a look!

Fall at the Falls

2010-11-12T02:38:00.005-05:00

It was a beautiful fall day and a quick little getaway was in order so we went out to Great Falls, MD. I hadn't been there for at least ten years, but it was at least as beautiful as I remembered it from the last time.

On the Maryland side you have to stroll along the C&O canal towpath to get to the walkway for the falls.

This is a little stream that runs between the canal and the Potomac. It was doing a lovely job reflecting the gorgeous blue sky.

"Leaflets three - leave them be." The poison ivy poem.

Here's the first section that we came to. A sort of narrow gorge.

This is the main part of the falls. Great Falls covers a very wide and rocky section of the river.

Great Falls, VA. I looked at the falls from over there this past spring. I think the main part looks prettier from the Virginia side, but the walk to the falls is nicer on the Maryland side and you can get much closer to them.

Dwindling Travel

2010-11-11T00:31:00.001-05:00

I love to travel and I've been very lucky to be able to incorporate that into my gigs in the past. I very reluctantly had to give up cruising and touring about halfway through 2006, always thinking that I'd get right back to it in a year, or two at the most. Here's how that plan has played out:
2005
16 Countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Netherlands, England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Poland, Norway.
31 States (including DC): Maryland, DC, Virginia, Idaho, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut.
2006
5 countries: Canada, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Iceland.
27 States: Maryland, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachussets, New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Hawaii

2007
18 States: Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana.

2008
13 States: Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Nebraska.

2009
7 States: Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania.

2010
3 States so far: Maryland, DC, Virginia. Exactly 2 one day trips to the beach this summer. No vacations for me. But tomorrow I’m actually going all the way to Delaware! (for a gig.) I’m so excited to be adding another state to my “travels” for this year!

At the rate things are going, I won’t even be leaving my house next year.

Stink Bugs in my Bass

2010-10-11T01:51:00.000-04:00

Wasn't it a gorgeously beautiful day today? The weather was perfect. But then I had an outdoor wedding gig and two stink bugs crawled inside my bass right in the middle of Pachelbel's Canon. They are probably still in there because I did not see them crawl back out. So what am I supposed to do now? I don't want stink bugs in my bass. It's disgusting. I really don't want my bass to smell like stink bugs!

We have Franz Schubert in the house!

2010-10-07T03:24:00.005-04:00

About a week ago my friend Nancy came over for a visit and decided that my living room would be the ideal place to get together for a reading of the Schubert Octet. She decided this in spite of the fact that the room was a complete mess, full of boxes and other stuff that I'd never unpacked. Maybe she was trying to do me a favor by forcing me to unpack. It worked!

The reason I hadn't unpacked was because I thought that it would be best to wait until all the baseboards and window trim was done before everything got spread out and moved into place. I hate the thought of everything getting all dusty from the relatively small amount of construction we have left to do.

I still think that, but it's time to actually start acting like I live here whether the house is finished or not. I'm so glad I finally got the stimulus I needed to do that. It's been kind of depressing having all those boxes piled up in there. Playing the Schubert is a much better use of that room.

Anyway I spent the past week painting the coat closet so I could put the coats away. It is so nice to have a coat closet! Our rental house didn't have one and it was always a problem. And that closet was the last room left to be painted so now the only painting left to do is the window and door trim and baseboards, if they ever get installed. Aren't I patient?

So over the last couple of days I've been moving all of the boxes to more appropriate locations and finally the room is ready for its inaugural chamber music session!

Nancy organized the whole thing and we'll have time to run through the whole piece twice I think. It's about an hour long. It's going to be fun to play it with some new people. Some of the players are friends or acquaintances and a couple of them I've never met before.

Later tomorrow I'm playing with a big band up in Baltimore at a place called the Wine Cellar. After that I'll be spending some time learning some new tunes (for me) for a wedding gig on Sunday. I think I might have actually even heard some of these songs before:

#41, Typical Situation, Ants Marching, Crash Into Me by the Dave Matthews Band; Upside Down and Times Like These by Jack Johnson; I'm Yours by John Mayer.

I guess I'll be checking them out on YouTube very soon.

Speaking of YouTube, here's a movement from the Schubert we'll be playing in about eight hours. I guess I'd better go to sleep now. Nighty-Night!

Math Dreams

2010-10-05T09:58:00.011-04:00

Subtitle: Strange Woman Forgets Everything She Learned in Math Class

This morning I woke up from a dream where I was trying to figure out whether there existed a formula for calculating the number of different combinations a series of five numbers could have. What a strange dream to wake up from, or even to have! Although I'm quite decent at arithmetic, I'm not really particularly a math type, so why would I even care about such a thing? Anyway, I was sure there must be a formula, which I probably learned in high school, but it's most definitely not something that's come up for me for at least 20 years.

So then, in my half awake state, still lying there, I started visualizing the possible number combinations for 123, because I knew I could do that easily and instantly. Because I'm so organized, I did the ones first and then the twos, and then the threes. Whoopdee Doo. I immediately saw a pattern and I thought I could also visualize it working for 1234 so I thought maybe I could make a formula from that. Keep in mind that I'm still half asleep while thinking all of this, but the snoring next to me is forcing me to become gradually more and more aware of my surroundings, and of what I am thinking, whether I want to be thinking or not.

There are six combinations for 123, which is 3x2. There are three different starting numbers and two combinations for the remaining numbers for each of the three starting numbers so that's 3x2, right? So I thought maybe the formula is the number of different digits (3) multiplied by the number of combinations for the remaining digits (2).

I didn't think too hard about the combination of four numbers, I just tried to feel it, and it seemed okay, and that's when the pattern, if this is even right, kicks in more obviously. But what I was really trying to do at this point was fall back to sleep.

Instead, I did the pattern of multiplying descending numbers 3x2 (x1, what the heck) and stuck a four in front of it: 4x3x2x1. I don't know if this works, but it "felt" right and I was still too sleepy to care.

When I finally gave up trying to sleep and got out of bed, I was kind of more wrapped up in why the hell was I having boring mathematical dreams than I was in trying to figure out if I'd actually "discovered" a secret mathematical formula while sleeping, ha ha ha!

Then I thought, hey maybe there are some math types out there who are also bloggers and they will read this and set me straight. Since I have had almost nothing to say for months maybe I'll just write this all out and people will read it and say "That's enough! I'm never coming back! She's boring and weird and I don't want to read a bunch of low level mathematical crap. Who knows what she'll write about next to irritate her remaining three readers?" Or maybe the math nerds will take pity on me and tell me they used to dream the same thing - when they were five.

Sorry, I guess I got sidetracked by an early morning case of ADD (adult deficit disorder). So the formula was solidifying in my head: four different numbers gets 4x3x2x1, or 24 combinations. I was really feeling the layers of it and it felt right without even laying out the actual individual piles of number combinations. I really wanted to stay in that state of right brain-ed-ness and not let my annoying, detail-oriented left brain burst my happy little bubble of discovery and wonder.

But now that I'm awake I don't trust it at all, so I'm going have to actually physically double check with five numbers, to answer my original question that I had during the dream. I guess we can add OCD to the ADD. At least I'm well balanced.

Let's see if 5x4x3x2x1 gives us the right number, that is if I'm able to lay these out in an organized enough way to get them all. I guess that's what computers are for, but I'm too low tech to do it that way at this time, especially since I haven't the slighest idea how to do it.

5 4 3 2 1 * * * * * : ( ^%$##@!!!

Okay, I gave up doing it with five numbers. It's a little too unwieldy and unpractical to do it this way and I'm just not that interested. But I'm mildly interested. I'm going to do it with just four numbers and call it a day.

4321, 4312, 4231, 4213, 4132, 4123.
3421, 3412, 3241, 3214, 3142, 3124.
2341, 2314, 2431, 2413, 2134, 2143.
1324, 1342, 1234, 1243, 1432, 1423.

Did I miss any? I went across the first row with 4 in front of the six combinations of three numbers. In the next row I switched the threes and the fours but kept the rest of it the same. Then I substituted the twos with the fours from the first row, and then the ones. This is what my brain "felt" but did not calculate during the time that I was still half asleep.

So now the fives. You'd start the first row with 5 in front of those 24 combinations and then you'd substitute the 5 for the four in the next row and then the three, etc. for each of the 24 combinations. So you'd have five rows of 24 different combinations, right? So that's 5x4x3x2x1 = 120. Please tell me if I'm wrong, because if this is right I want to remember it. I would like for it to be right because it's kind of a groovy formula. Also, how would you write this in an actual mathematic formula, with x's and y's?

I guess this is a perfect example of if you don't use it you lose it. I'm sure this descending factor thingy has come up before sometime in school somewhere. I got as far as pre-calculus in high school but I don't remember a thing about it other than that I liked it and did okay with it - probably half Bs and half As. I'm not totally stupid. My favorite math course was geometry, which seemed more artistic somehow than other forms of math. And creative and logical at the same time. I liked that. Then it was on to music in college and it's been nothing but basic arithmetic for me ever since.

I just remembered why I was even dreaming about this. It was because I'd been dreaming that I would sell on Ebay some hand painted numbered tiles that I bought when I was in Sorrento on my cruise gig five long years ago. I wanted to figure out how many different house numbers would work with these tiles, which I'm not going to be using since they don't work with the color scheme we ended up with.

Uh oh, there's one number in my five tiles that is used twice. So my 5x4x3x2x1 thingy isn't going to work, even if it was the right formula to begin with. My gut instinct is telling me that I should do 5x4x3x2x1 and then divide that result in half. I don't know why I would think such a thing, and it's probably wrong. I've suddenly lost interest in this topic because the snorer is up and now I can go back to sleep. Maybe I'll dream up the right answer. But since I don't really need to know, maybe I'll just not worry about it anymore.

Also, before I was dreaming about selling my hand painted tiles on Ebay, and messing around with number combinations, I was playing millions of games of Free Cell in my sleep. I just discovered Free Cell after years of playing just plain old Solitaire. It's a lot more interesting and winning seems to have a lot more to do with creative organizational skills than it does with how the cards happen to fall.

Hey, I wonder how many layout combinations there are for Free Cell, and more importantly, how many possible winning layout combinations there are? 52x51x50,etc........? And would you cut the number in half because of the fact that there are two reds and two blacks for each number? And blah, blah, blah? Who cares. It's time to add two more hours of sleep to my previous three.

So how was your morning?

Is it better to be half asleep or half awake?

Is my glass half empty or half full?

And, most importantly, is my brain half empty or half full?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

apples, apples, apples

2010-09-27T00:37:00.005-04:00

This year was a particularly good year for our apple tree. We've been enjoying them for well over a month now and the final apple was picked just a few days ago. It's great to have such excellent apples on hand. We've mostly been eating them fresh but Doug has made applesauce with his Foley food mill a few times. I love his applesauce.

We had about three times as many apples in our refrigerator and on our countertop as you can see in this current picture but we've been eating so much of them that it's finally gotten down to a manageable quantity. These will last us for probably another month if we take our time.

Last week my awesome friend JoAnn offered to make us a pie so I took her enough apples for two pies and today we got to taste the results of her excellent pie-making skills. This pie tasted perfect to me. It was tangy and not too sweet and the baking seemed to make the flavor of the apples even more intense. And they were tasty apples to begin with. The crust was delicious too. Thanks JoAnn!

Now that I have an actual kitchen maybe I should learn how to make a pie. I remember watching my grandmother do it many times when I was growing up. And I'll be able to take the pie out of the oven with my amazing new potholders.

See how red that apple is? Usually when you buy MacIntosh apples in the store, or when the deer knock them off your tree, they are half red and half green. If you don't pick them too early they'll become sweeter and they turn completely red on the outside.

The next best thing to having your own tree is to hit one of the local fruit stands. There are actually orchards that are not too far out of town. And now is also an excellent time to buy locally made apple cider.

Glenmont Skies

2010-09-11T21:59:00.002-04:00

The Glenmont shopping center is probably one of the least attractive places in all of Montgomery County. But this evening it was looking pretty good.

There's nothing like a little sunset to help things look as good as they possibly can.

It's really not a good idea to stand under those wires. Those birds are always there, taking care of business.

a most peculiar day

2010-07-28T01:34:00.014-04:00

Today was the first day I've had completely off in a while and since it was also relatively cool, I was all psyched to mow the grass. But today was also the day that Doug's five year old overpriced lemon of a $700 Honda mower decided to call it quits for the final time. It has been acting cantankerous practically since the first year Doug bought it, during the one spring that he had to mow the grass because I was off cruising. Today was the first day that Doug could not get his precious baby interested, even after considerable poking and prodding.

H E L L O

I reallyreallyreally wanted to get the damn grass cut, so I quickly went inside to research lawnmowers, and I soon figured out which moderately priced non-Honda would best satisfy my needs. I even called someone I knew who had recently bought the same one to make sure he still liked it. As I was attempting to share this information with Doug he informed me that he had decided that this afternoon would be a perfect time to do our annual paddleboating session at Lake Centennial.

I knew full well that this was a diversionary tactic, not only for the sake of getting me off track in my quest to do whatever it might take to get the damn grass cut, (i.e. spend $400 on a new mower) but also so that he could further delay his own wallboarding duties inside. He doesn't seem enjoy it much when I'm not in there cheering him on. But that's not my fault. My plan was that we would both do the taping and mudding just as soon as I finished mowing the grass. I found out later that the secret reason for the paddleboating trip was so that we could stop in some random hardware store in Clarksville, MD that might have lawnmowers to look at on the way back. We live in Silver Spring so that makes total sense. Yeah.

As usual, we had lots of fun paddleboating, although I did notice Doug gazing rather wistfully at the kayaks. The weather was perfect too - not too hot and not too bright. We can go kayaking next time, especially if you mention it before we rent a paddleboat.

I wish I knew how to make a slide show here. I still haven't gotten around to learning how to do that. You'll just have to pretend those ducks above were in a slide show.

Do any of you locals remember the Enchanted Forest? I read recently that many of the original buildings and statues had been restored and moved to a new location. And we just happened to notice it today because the new location is on Route 108. We stopped in on the way back to check it out.

In case you don't know about the Enchanted Forest, here's a link to the story of how it all got started.

The Enchanted Forest stuff has been combined with a petting farm that includes hayrides and pony rides. There were a lot of little kids in there who appeared to be having an excellent time. It seems like a very quaint and gentle place. When I went there as a kid I was sort of past the fairy tale stage and possibly a little jaded by then (a huge fan of fractured fairy tales), but I thought it was cool the way they had so many stories depicted all in one place. My little brother loved it.

"Help! Save me!"

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.

The Dragon as Minstrel

"Yaaay! I finally finished washing the dishes!

Thank goodness for Playtex Living Gloves!"

This is the house where Goldilocks visited the Three Bears.

It took me the longest time to figure out what those things were up on the roof. It's a corn cob pipe for Papa Bear, some kind of night cap for Mama Bear, and a giant baby bottle for Baby Bear, all conveniently located right up there on the roof.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,

She had so many children, she didn't know what to do;

She gave them some broth, without any bread,

And whipped them all soundly

And sent them to bed.

NICE!

Follow the Gingerbread Man into the Enchanted Forest Pine Tree Maze!

I'm really sort of glad I'm not a kid anymore. Our imaginations were fed by some rather peculiar stories and notions, even back then. I can't even imagine what it's like today to be a kid. Probably a lot more frightening.

So after all the fun was over, we went to the hardware store in Clarksville which had nothing useful in the way of lawnmowers, and then to Home Depot in Aspen Hill which had the one I really wanted, plus two that Doug was interested in. We had a little debate, but it remained friendly. Then I was sent off alone on sort of a reconnaissanse mission to Zimmermans Hardware in Burtonsville to make sure I really liked the one I had picked out because they keep their mowers on the floor and I could actually roll it around, unlike at Home Depot. Finally we went back to Home Depot and bought the one I liked. So that went really well. And it was much more efficient than many of our purchasing adventures are, believe it or not.

Tomorrow I will take the bull by the horns and finally get my grass cut.
Toro, Toro, Toro!

Eastern Shore Side Trip: The Wye Oak

2010-07-22T17:15:00.020-04:00

This past spring, during a break between services at a gig on the Eastern Shore I decided to go visit the Wye Oak. Or I should say the place where the Wye Oak was before it came down during a huge thunderstorm in 2002.

I remember seeing signs for the Wye Oak on my many trips to the beach over the years and wondering why in the world there would be a sign on Route 50 for a tree, of all things. But I was always in too much of a hurry to get to the beach on the way down, or to miss the bridge traffic on the way back to ever stop and see it. I just don't like anything cutting into my beach time to the point where I would often go there by myself just so that I could do it no breaks. But one day in 2000 or 2001 I had Doug with me and we decided to stop and see it. Doug just loves taking little side trips and I figured it wouldn't take up too much time so I went along with it.

The tree was enormous, very old and very weather beaten, and it was clearly past its prime. It was the kind of tree that you could almost imagine somebody hollowing out and making into a house except that it was really not in very good shape at that point and you just don't do that sort of thing to trees anyway, except in cartoons. But that's how big it was. At the time it was the largest White Oak tree in the entire United States and had held that title since at least the early 1900s. I had never known that as I sped past the exit to it at least a hundred times over the years so I'm really glad I finally got to see it.

I found some old pictures of the Wye Oak here and there. I have linked to all of the websites where these pictures were originally located down at the bottom of this post.

1921

1935

1965

2002

I had my camera with me when I went to visit it again this last time. Here are some of the pictures I took:

It's looking pretty empty here - a fence around a mulch pile?

This is the official sign. Click on it if you want to see what it says.

They planted a young clone of the Wye Oak in the middle of its former trunk.

The Wye Oak seems to be asking WHY?

They have lots of grain storage right across the street.

A few doors down I saw this gate made out of old wagon wheels.

The Wye Grist Mill is still in operation

There are picnic tables nearby

and an old abandoned barn is just around the corner

So if you aren't in a big hurry to get to or from the beach the way I usually am, visiting the Wye Oak is a great little side trip to take along the way. Here are some links to additional information about the Wye Oak:

An American Champion

The Quiet Giant, The Wye Oak

The Maryland State Tree

The Wye Oak Comes Down

so what else is new?

2010-07-20T04:26:00.003-04:00

As I have mentioned before, both of my blogs were started as the result of a certain unpleasant event and branched off from each other into a house-specific blog and this one, which has gradually developed into a rather lighthearted diversion from my somewhat grueling life over the past five years.

Once we moved, we basically stopped working on the house in spite of the fact that it is nowhere near being finished, which is annoying, but I suddenly started gigging a lot more and although I continued to have fun taking pictures all over the place, I somehow lost the urge to assemble them into blog posts. I kept thinking I should, but somehow it didn’t happen.

I think the reason for this might be because the types of things I would ordinarily write about, those bright little moments that have cheered me up and brought me joy, don’t seem to stand out as much as they had previously. Now that we are back in our house everything feels like it is back as it should be. Well not everything - there are still some things that need to be taken care before I can fully resume my previous life but it’s getting there. Obviously I have proven time and again over the years that I have the ability to be patient far above and beyond what would be in a normal person’s best interest. But we are not normal around here.

So this is all pretty boring stuff, and I should just get on with it if I’m going to spend time wiggling my fingers over the keyboard. Since I don’t have much to say maybe I’ll talk about what I’ve been up to lately. There hasn’t been a whole lot of construction work taking place here lately – it’s been practically next to nothing since April, which is frustrating because when productivity is happening I like to keep going until it’s done. I hate losing momentum. On the other hand, working on the house is not exactly my idea of a good time so the procrastination is not entirely unpleasant.

In April and May I did some unpacking and played a lot of gigs. It was a good mix of shows, various orchestra concerts, some church gigs, our weekly jazz octet thing and some small combo work. All the stuff I like to do. Except tour and travel.

In June Doug went on vacation, I mean on tour (which in his case is a vacation because he made less money and had more fun than he would have if he had stayed at home). Since his vacation, I mean tour, was already on the books, I regretfully was stuck turning down a gig on the QM2, which sucks because in addition to missing an opportunity to make more money than I do here at home, I missed a fairly decent itinerary that included Europe and fjords and trips to New York and New England.

But I was too busy to stay resentful for long – in addition to a decent amount of playing, I started and finished a pretty big painting job for my parents. It felt really great to actually finish a project like that in a relatively short time. Also I successfully convinced them to branch out a tiny little bit and add some touches of color to their all off-white interior. The convincing was a major accomplishment and it was therefore particularly rewarding to hear them acknowledge how good it looked after it was all done since they know what they like better than I do.

Also in June I pulled out my fancy new computerized sewing machine, which is still not as easy to deal with as my old workhorse machine was before it got all melted and destroyed, and I made a dress(!) and altered a blouse so I have two new things I can wear. I wore the dress to a gig at Glen Echo and instead of being boiling hot in pants I stayed nice and cool and comfortable in the sweltering heat.
Two more things done.

This past week I played with a couple of singers for Bastille Day at the French Embassy on Wednesday, played for a pool party in Potomac on Friday, and did a guitar-bass duo in the lobby of the Atlas Theatre on Saturday. On Sunday I drank way too much coffee after sort of being off of it for a while. I met my friend at Starbucks to carpool up to a rehearsal in Baltimore and our receipts contained an offer for a $2.00 drink after 2pm, which is exactly when we got back there so of course we had to spend the $2.00 to get the deal.

It was so hot on Sunday that I decided I needed to spend the afternoon sitting somewhere cold and dark instead of mowing the grass, so Doug decided that we should see Metropolis at the Avalon. It was a very long, very strange, and very excellent movie. The soundtrack was gorgeous. And then I somehow stayed up until 6:30 this morning. I didn’t even try to go to sleep. Apparently the effects of coffee are cumulative and they build up. So it’s time to go without it again for a while.

Today I played at a retirement home in DC. It feels so good to play music that obviously means so much to the people who live there. It’s a really special feeling. One time at the Hebrew home in Rockville a man came up to talk to me afterwards and he said he was soon going to be celebrating his 103rd birthday. He’s the oldest person I’ve ever met. He’s on a walker but takes no medication. Isn’t that amazing? That’s probably why he’s still alive. Imagine all of the history he has lived through.

Okay that wasn’t so hard. I obviously haven’t lost the ability to blather on and on and on, once I get started. Maybe next time I’ll post sooner rather than later because the longer you put something off the easier it is to not get around to it again. Hmmm.….that rings a not too distant bell. I wonder why?

some things never change

I'm Not Really a Blogger...

2010-06-27T09:38:00.009-04:00

There's a nail polish that I wore as part of my getup for the tour I used to do called "I'm Not Really a Waitress." It's an excellent shade of red if you're into that sort of thing. And the name of the color made it more fun to wear somehow. It still amuses me.

I've been trying to figure out why I haven't gotten around to blogging in over a month. I've been busy but not ridiculously so. Well relatively speaking anyway. When I've had free time I've done other things. My brain has been in a different place since I moved back into my house. At least part of my existence is now back to where it should be.

I wasn't a blogger before the fire - in fact I didn't even know what blogging was when I started writing my first posts on the bus back in 2005. I wrote about the fire and its aftermath, put up a bunch of pictures from my three month cruise gig in Europe, wrote about the road gig, used it a little bit to observe how I felt about some of the post fire crap, and then it kind of became a little cheering myself up device, with pretty pictures and random little observations. I needed cheering up because for five years I was trapped in the limbo of our house situation and not particularly happy (rather horrified actually) about the way things were playing out. It was a rather miserable and bleak existence over all. So blogging for me was kind of an escape from all of that.

Now we're finally back in our house - well not completely, but at least we're living there. It feels great to be back. I've always felt some kind of connection with this particular spot. My sense of direction is based here. And there's just something that just feels right about living in the same location where I cut the grass.

Since moving back in we've done very little work on the house which has been wonderful from a labor and dirt perspective although as a person who likes to see things through to completion, it's been a little frustrating and discouraging. But it is so much nicer than it was before so I'll take that. And immediately after we moved back in the gigging started to suddenly pick up a lot, so that was excellent timing.

The only thing missing for me is travelling. I really want to get back to doing ships and/or a road gig. I've had to turn down a number of ship gig offers with really nice itineraries over the past four years and that just sucks. But after we tie up a few final loose ends I'll be free to do that once again. I can't wait!

If I'm going continue to do this blogging thing I'll have to find a different reason to do it. It's kind of nice to not need it to serve as an escape from my miserable existence any longer, hahaha. I know - it'll be the icing on the cake of my happy existence from now on. Or maybe the sprinkles. So if I don't post, it's because I'm on a diet.

So that's enough of that - now back to the usual fare. Yesterday when I was cutting the grass I noticed that one of our magnolia bushes has two random blooms on it, and they are much brighter and darker than what this bush usually puts out in the spring.

And then a tiny baby bunny hopped out from UNDER the mower just in the nick of time. It freaked me out even though it happens all the time, especially when the grass gets long. This one is the smallest I've ever seen. Look how short his little ears are! I turned off the mower and spent a little quiet time sitting there with him while I took his picture. I hope he didn't mind.

(he's hiding)

Things I saw Today

2010-05-16T00:49:00.008-04:00

In spite of the distance I alway enjoy driving to Damascus for gigs because the rural scenery is both beautiful and entertaining. The smiling sycamore is always there to greet me, both coming and going.

Speaking of sycamores, I spotted this enormous specimen just off of New Hampshire Avenue out past Ashton.

It's huge! I'm glad those people kept it there when they built their house. I wonder how old that tree is? I've always been in love with sycamores!

The sign below makes me smile every time I see it, but I'm usually driving too fast to read all of it. Today I stopped. I think it was the Monster Worms 24/7 that made me want to take a closer look.

Worms 10 cents, Home of the Lucky Worm, Monster Worms 24/7, 24/7 On Your Honor!

Farther down New Hampshire Avenue, at the intersection with Adelphi Road, the sign twirler was taking a break. Free Rent & Free Utilities sounds like a pretty good deal to me! When he started back up with the twirling, the sign was completely unreadable. That doesn't seem like a very efficient advertising technique. But the free rent makes up for that I guess.

Catching Up

2010-04-22T02:21:00.006-04:00

I have a couple of moving memories to share with you, or perhaps I should say memories of moving. What in the world do you think this lovely blending of purples might be? Hint: It's a metaphorical photo that represents the current condition of this blog - I've fallen behind.

So how does this picture represent that? Well it's a fallen behind, mine to be exact. And that's a just modest 5 inch segment of an enormous nine inch bruise that occured when my left cheek hit the sharpest part of a step as I was backing up the stairs with the mattress. It hurt like hell for about two weeks, but it's nearly all gone now.

Nobody wanted our box spring so we took it to the dump the next day. Someone did take the bedframe though. We didn't need it in our new place.

How does it feel to be back in our house? Well it was kind of confusing at first. Everything is a lot more spread out. I'm still unpacking, but the kitchen is almost done. I like my kitchen. There's room for everything to be well organized. I haven't had a dishwasher in years and it is delightful to have one now. Everything comes out so clean and shiny. I like all of my appliances. I like that they are clean, white, and shiny.

The washer and dryer are great too. The clothes come out all fluffy and with none of that gross detergent smell. I don't know why, but I even feel extra clean after I take a shower. I just love the great potential for cleanliness that this house has. For now it's still a construction zone, so every time I accidentally brush against a doorway I get wallboard dust on my clothes. But it's CLEAN wallboard dust, or at least it feels that way.

I'm not really obsessed with cleanliness, although some might argue with that. It's just that the main activities of the past several years have been so yucky and dirty and gross. It's great to just do normal non-dirty stuff for a change.

I now live closer to most of the places I go. Getting my bass and gear in and out of the house and car is much more convenient and there's no mud or gravel to deal with anymore. That is wonderful.

I haven't had to go to Home Depot in three weeks. I haven't worn my paint splattered work clothes out in public for nearly three weeks. Immediately before we moved that I had worn them everywhere, every day, for over three weeks straight. Instead I've worn my black gig clothes just about every day this month. That I don't mind.

I've performed a nice variety of music including Swingtopia on Monday nights at the Greek Village, a trio gig at Sala Thai with a jazz singer, the Mikado at the Atlas Theatre, a different trio at La Ferme, a contemporary cantata at a church on Kent Island, the new opera Shadowboxer at UMD (I'm in the onstage jazz octet), the Beethoven Septet at Dumbarton House, and coming up I've got a Mozart and Haydn orchestra concert at Church of the Epiphany, and Guys and Dolls at a school up in Baltimore.

When I'm home I'm either putting stuff away or wandering around my new house and yard. It's kind of hard to believe I actually live here again, but I'm starting to get used to the idea.

Although I'm going to miss the giant tulip magnolia from the rental place, I will have the growth of this weeping cherry, my second favorite type of flowering tree, to look forward to.

Below is a picture of our river birch with the neighbors' cherry tree in the background. The two main colors in this picture remind me of a Lilly Pulitzer fabric.

I had to mow the grass, which meant that all of the cute little flowers out there would soon be gone, so I crawled around and took a few pictures first. These tiny purple flowers are some sort of weed that causes all kinds of havoc and irritation to my lungs when I mow that particular patch of grass in the middle of the summer, but they are completely harmless to me now. I was thinking as I mowed, about all of the people who have such awful allergy symptoms in the spring and how lucky I am to not have those issues, but then I remembered the weekly hacking ritual that takes place every time I mow the summer version of those tiny flowers. I wonder what they are?

Here are some violets peeking out between the blades of grass.

What I Will Miss the Most

2010-04-11T00:46:00.004-04:00

Okay, I know tulip magnolias are SO last week, but at this point so is our move . This huge magnolia tree is what I'm going to miss the most about the place we were renting. It is so beautiful and magnificent and this was its best year ever.

I'm glad I took a few moments out from packing and cleaning to get a few more shots. Two days after we finished moving all of the blossoms were gone.

It's almost as if the tree was saving its best for last, just for us. It will be nice to have one good memory of our time in that house.

I wonder if it would be possible to air-layer one of the branches of that tree? It is a tree that definitely deserves to be cloned, for the greater good of mankind.

Happy Spring!

swamped

2010-03-23T01:48:00.007-04:00

That's what I am - completely and utterly swamped. I haven't been taking pictures and I haven't had any blog-worthy thoughts in ages. I've got a one track mind about getting back into our house at the end of the month, not that I'm anywhere near being ready, other than having been READY for about four years, and the only other thing I can fit in right now is music stuff, which I am always delighted to fit in at all times. My house blog is also in a state of extreme neglect at the moment.

Quite coincidentally, a swamp caught my eye recently. I've seen this swamp before - it's right near the intersection of Routes 198 and 32, a little bit east of Laurel, and it usually just looks kind of depressing. We were coming back from visiting a house that was built in the 1920s that friends of ours are planning to buy and fix up (their very first house) and since the swamp was looking a little more pleasant than usual that day I decided to take a few photos.

There were exactly two geese there. I think the Canadian geese are starting to be as plentiful as deer are around here these days, but they'll stake out their own personal pond (or swamp) if they can.

I soon started paying more attention to the jazzy reflections in the water than I did to the actual things making the reflections.

It's all upside down, kind of like my life has been for these last five years. That will be changing soon though. It's going to be rightside up from here on out and I can't wait!

Monday Night Jazz in Silver Spring

2010-02-28T22:48:00.003-05:00

Swingtopia will be playing two sets starting at 8:00 every Monday night in March at the Greek Village Restaurant, next to the Colesville Giant at the intersection of Randolph Road and New Hampshire Avenue. There's plenty of free parking. The food is excellent and there's even a small dance floor.

We'll be playing some great swinging octet arrangements of songs from the big band era for your dancing and listening pleasure. If our first month goes well it may become a regular thing, so please come if you can.

Greek Village Restaurant

13476 New Hampshire Avenue

Silver Spring, MD 20904

301-879-2877

A Robin in my 'Hood

2010-02-27T14:13:00.005-05:00

As I was picking up my bass this morning I looked out the window and saw a robin sunning himself against the back wall of the Cinderblock Chalet. He's all puffed out. I've never seen such a plump robin before!

"Whatchu lookin' at?"

And then I was almost all the way back home from my rehearsal when I suddenly saw a man in a oilcloth duster riding a black steed down New Hampshire Avenue. The day is still young - who knows what I'll see next? Have a great weekend!

Snow Remains

2010-02-25T11:33:00.005-05:00

The weather's been so gloomy lately and I'm extra relieved that the snow storm missed us today. There's still a ridiculous amount of snow left over from last time. I saw huge mountains of snow piled up in Olney yesterday.

Thankfully the snow is only about a third of what it was in most places. And the birds are starting to come back. On Sunday I saw a flock of 16 robins, but I didn't have my camera with me until yesterday. I hope that they'll be sticking around now that they are here.

And the local hawk is back up on his wire, staring down the mice and other critters. My least favorite season is almost over!

It's always something...

2010-02-20T19:43:00.006-05:00

I haven't had the time or the energy to post in a while - we've been too busy shoveling out of one place and into another. When we finally made it into our house we were in such a huge hurry to get most of the rest of the basement drywall mudded, sanded, and painted, that we decided to just ignore this situation just outside our back porch for the time being.

Yuck, more work for us, just what we need. Yesterday we finally shoveled around far enough in the back to see the extent of the damage. It looks like the roof survived just fine, but the bottom section of our cedar tree has been rather severely and crudely pruned by the heavy snow.

So in addition to the work on the house ALWAYS taking longer than either of us could possibly expect, we are going to have to clear these branches out of the way in order to move in. It's pretty obvious that we won't be able to move in by the end of this month. So that's another month of rent we'll have to pay. The snow has really held us back.

Those are some big branches that came down!

Elsewhere in our back yard, a woodpecker sits at the end of yet another broken off tree branch.

Speaking of trees, I'll be playing in the pit for Scott Joplin's rarely performed opera, Treemonisha, next weekend. The music is lovely - operatic ragtime, if you will. And the singer who plays Treemonisha has an absolutely gorgeous voice.

Freedom!

2010-02-06T20:41:00.006-05:00

By about 4:oo we were tired of being cooped up and the snow seemed to be tapering off so we went outside and did four hours of shoveling. Well I did, anyway, because I was determined to make it out to the street. Doug pooped out and went in to cook some delicious black beans and rice.

I finally made it all the way out to the street so tomorrow we can go for a walk, or shovel some more and go work on our house.

With the life I've been living for the past three years, there's not been much point in caring how I look when I go out in public (which usually means Home Depot). That attitude served me well today when I devised these knee length waterproof shoe covers. The rubber bands even provide a little traction, and color. I used to have boots for the snow but that is one of the things I never got around to replacing. Anyway my feet stayed totally dry and warm - it was pretty amazing

It was great to be out in the fresh air and snow, getting some exercise after having worked in the basement for the past couple of weeks. It almost felt the same as skiing, except it was cheaper and not as much fun. But there was no risk of injury and the exercise felt good.

I think my car is more than halfway dug out. It'll nice to have options tomorrow instead of being totally trapped.

Here's the Cinderblock Chalet looking more attractive than usual in the snow. Look at all that snow on top of the trash can.

Sentimental Snowfall

2010-02-06T13:27:00.002-05:00

Here's a perfect song for a day like today, Claude Thornhill's beautiful arrangement of "Snowfall" which became his theme song.

This arrangement was going to be the closing tune at the gig at Glen Echo last Saturday which was cancelled due to guess what? Snowfall.

Here's a possibly even more gorgeous arrangement of this beautiful tune which I first became aware of thanks to Washington Cube. Enjoy!